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GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


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/BY 
ROBERT BLATCHFORD 


EDiTOR OF THE CLARION, LONDON 


CHICAGO 
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
1917 


JOHN F. HIGGINS 
PRINTER AND BINDER 


376-382 MONROE STREET 
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 


TO 
MY SON 
ROBERT CORRI BLATCHFORD 


THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 


¥ 


ty 


PREFACE 


INFIDEL! 

I put the word in capitals, because it is my new name, 
and I want to get used to it. 

INFIDEL ! 

The name has been bestowed on me by several Chris- 
tian gentlemen as a reproach, but to my ears it has a 
quaint and not unpleasing sound. 

Infidel! “ The notorious Infidel editor of the Clarion” 
is the form used by one True Believer. The words re- 
curred to my mind suddenly, while I was taking my fa- 
vorite black pipe for a walk along “ the pleasant Strand,” 
and I felt a smile glimmer within as I repeated them. 

Which is worse, to be a Demagogue or an Infidel? I 
am both. For while many professed Christians contrive 
to serve both God and Mammon, the depravity of my na- 
ture seems to forbid my serving either. 

It was a mild day in mid August, not cold for the time 
of year. I had been laid up for a few days, and my 
back was unpropitious, and I was tired. But I felt very 
happy, for so bad a man, since the sunshine was clear and 
genial, and my pipe went as easily as a dream. 

Besides, one’s fellow-creatures are so amusing: espe- 
cially in the Strand. I had seen a proud and gorgeously 
upholstered lady lolling languidly in a motor car, and 
looking extremely pleased with herself — not without 
reason; and I had met two successful men of great pres- 
ence, who reminded me somehow of “ Porkin and Snob ”’; 
and I had noticed a droll little bundle of a baby, in a 


7 


8 PREFACE 


fawn colored woolen suit, with a belt slipped almost to 
her knees, and sweet round eyes as purple as pansies, 
who was hunting a rolling apple amongst “the wild 
mob’s million feet”; and I had seen a worried-looking 
matron frantically waving her umbrella to the driver of 
an omnibus, endanger the silk hat of Porkin, and disturb 
the complacency of Snob; and I felt glad. 

It was at that moment that there popped into my head 
the full style and title I had earned. ‘‘ Notorious Infidel 
editor of the Clarion!” These be brave words, indeed. 
For a moment they almost flattered me into the belief 
that I had become a member of the higher criminal 
classes: a bold bad man, like Guy Fawkes, or Kruger, or 
R. B. Cunninghame-Graham. 

“You ought,” I said to myself, “to dress the part. 
You ought to have an S.D.F. sombrero, a slow wise 
Fabian smile, and the mysterious trousers of a Soho con- 
spirator.” , 

But at the instant I caught a sight of my counterfeit 
presentment in a shop window, and veiled my haughty 
crest. That a notorious Infidel! Behold a dumpy, com- 
fortable British paterfamilias in a light flannel suit and a 
faded sun hat. No; it will not do. Not a bit like 
Mephisto: much more like the Miller of the Dee. 

Indeed, I am not an irreligious man, really; I am 
rather a religious man; and this is not an irreligious, but 
rather a religious book. 

Such thoughts should make men humble. After all, 
may not even John Burns be human; may not Mr. Cham- 
berlain himself have a heart that can feel for another ? 

Gentle reader, that was a wise as well as a charitable 
man who taught us there is honor among thieves; al- 
though, having never been a member of Parliament him- 
self, he must have spoken from hearsay. 


PREFACE 9 


“For all that, Robert, you’re a notorious Infidel.” I 
paused — just opposite the Tivoli — and gazed moodily 
up and down the, Strand. 

As I have remarked elsewhere, I like the Strand. It 
is a very human place. But I own that the Strand lacks 
dignity and beauty, and that amongst its varied odors the 
odor of sanctity is scarce perceptible. 

There are no trees in the Strand. The thoroughfare 
should be wider. The architecture is, for the most part, 
banal. For a chief street in a Christian capital, the 
Strand is not eloquent of high national ideals. 

There are derelict churches in the Strand, and dingy 
blatant taverns, and strident signs and hoardings ; and 
there are slums hard by. 

There are thieves in the Strand, and prowling vagrants, 
and gaunt hawkers, and touts, and gamblers, and loitering 
failures, with tragic eyes and wilted garments ; and pros- 
titutes plying for hire. 

And east and west, and north and south of the Strand, 
there is London. Is there a man amongst all London’s 
millions brave enough to tell the naked truth about the 
vice and crime, the misery and meanness, the hypocrisies 
and shames of the great, rich, heathen city? Were such 
a man to arise amongst us and voice the awful truth, 
what would his reception be? How would he fare at the 
hands of the Press, and the Public — and the Church? 

As London is, so is England. This is a Christian 
country. What would Christ think of Park Lane, and 
the slums, and the hooligans? What would He think of 
the Stock Exchange, and the Music Hall, and the race- 
course? What would He think of our national Ideals ? 
What would He think of the House of Peers, and the 
Bench of Bishops, and the Yellow Press? 

Pausing again, over against Exeter Hall, I mentally 


TO PREFACE 


apostrophize the Christian British people. “ Ladies and 
Gentlemen,” I say, “you are Christian in name, but I 
discern little of Christ in your ideals, your institutions, or 
your daily lives. You are a mercenary, self-indulgent, 
frivolous, boastful, blood-guilty mob of heathen. I like 
you very much, but that is what you are. And it is you 
— you who call men “ Infidels.” You ridiculous crea- 
tures, what do you mean by it? 

If to praise Christ in words, and deny Him in deeds, 
be Christianity, then London is a Christian city, and 
England is a Christian nation. For it is very evident that 
our common English ideals are anti-Christian, and that 
our commercial, foreign, and social affairs are run on 
anti-Christian lines. 

Renan says, in his Life of Jesus, that “ were Jesus to 
return amongst us He would recognize as His disciples, 
not those who imagine they can compress Him into a few 
catechismal phrases, but those who labor to carry on His 
work,” 

My Christian friends, I am a Socialist, and as such 
believe in, and work for, universal freedom, and universal 
brotherhood, and universal peace. 

And you are Christians, and I am an “ Infidel.” 

Well, be it even so. Iam an “ Infidel,” and I now ask 
leave to tell you why. 


FOREWORDS 


Ir is impossible for me to present the whole of my case 
in the space at my command; I can only give an outline. 
Neither can I do it as well as it ought to be done, but 
only as well as I am able. 

To make up for my shortcomings, and to fortify my 
case with fuller evidence, I must refer the reader to 
books written by men better equipped for the work 
than I. | 

To do justice to so vast a theme would need a large 
book, where I can only spare a short chapter, and each 
large book should be written by a specialist. 

For the reader’s own satisfaction, then, and for the 
sake of justice to my cause, I shall venture to suggest a 
list of books whose contents will atone for all my failures 
and omissions. And I am justified, I think, in saying 
that no reader who has not read the books I recommend, 
or others of like scope and value, can fairly claim to sit 
on the jury to try this case. 

And of these books I shall, first of all, heartily recom- 
mend the series of cheap sixpenny reprints now pub- 
lished by the Rationalist Press Association, Johnson’s 
Court, London, E.C. 


R.P.A. REPRINTS 


Huxley’s Lectures and Essays. 

Tyndall’s Lectures and Essays. 

Laing’s Human Origins. 

Laing’s Modern Science and Modern Thought. 
Clodd’s Pioneers of Evolution. 

Matthew Arnold’s Literature and Degma. 


ah | 


12 FOREWORDS 


Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe. 

Grant Allen’s Evolution of the Idea of God. 
Cotter Morrison’s Service of Man. 

Herbert Spencer’s Education. 


Some Apologists have, I am sorry to say, attempted to 
disparage those excellent books by alluding to them as 
‘“ Sixpenny Science” and “ Cheap Science.” The same 
method of attack will not be available against most of the 
books in my next list: 


The Golden Bough, Frazer. Macmillan, 36s. 

The Legend of Perseus, Hartland. D. Nutt, 25s. 
Christianity and Mythology, Robertson. Watts, 8s. 
Pagan Christs, Robertson. Watts, 8s. 

Supernatural Religion, Cassel. Watts, 6s. 

The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade. Kegan Paul, 6s. 
Mutual Aid, Kropotkin. Heinemann, 7s. 6d. 

The Story of Creation, Clodd. Longmans, 3s. 6d. 
Buddha and Buddhism, Lillie. Clark, 3s. 6d. 

Shall We Understand the Bible? Williams. Black, is, 
What is Religion? Tolstoy. Free Age Press, 6d. 
What I Believe, Tolstoy. Free Age Press, 6d. 

The Life of Christ, Renan. Scott, 1s. 6d. 


I also recommend Herbert Spencer’s Principles of So- 
ciology, and Lecky’s History of European Morals. 

Of pamphlets there are hundreds. Readers will get 
full information from Watts & Co., 17 Johnson’s Court, 
London, E.C. ; ' 

I can warmly recommend The Miracles of Christian 

Belief and The Claims of Christianity, by Charles Watts, 
and Christianity and Progress, a penny pamphlet, by G. 
W. Foote (The Freethought Publishing Company). 
_ I should also like to mention An Easy Outline of Evo- 
lution, by Dennis Hird (Watts & Co., 2s. 6d.). This 
book will be of great help to those who want to scrape 
acquaintance with the theory of evolution. 

Finally, let me ask the general reader to put aside all 
prejudice, and give both sides a fair hearing. Most of 


FOREWORDS 13 


the books I have mentioned above are of more actual 
value to the public of to-day than many standard works 
which hold world-wide reputations. 

No man should regard the subject of religion as de- 
cided for him until he has read The Golden Bough. The 
Golden Bough is one of those books that unmake history. 


CONTENTS 


PREBACK. 0) 0), 

POREAVORDS ou Ge, 

THE SIn oF UNBELIEF . 

ONE REASON . See UO et UPN i 
Wuat I Can anp CAnnot BELIEVE . 


THE Otp TESTAMENT — 
Is the Bible the Word of God? 
The Evolution of the Bible . 
The Universe 
Jehovah 
Bible Heroes 
The Book of Books 
Our Heavenly Father 
Prayer and Praise . 


THe New TestaMENT — 
The Resurrection . 
Gospel Witnesses . 
The Time Spirit 


Have the Documents been Tampered with? 


Christianity before Christ 
Other Evidences 


THE CuristTIAN RELIGION — 
What is Christianity ? 


DETERMINISM — 
Can Men Sin against God? 


PAGE 
Vil 


+1155 


2165 


16 | CONTENTS 


CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES — PAGE 
Ghiristian’ "A pologies, Pa dint ehh) ee ye Wrst nes Poe ray ce 187 
Christianity and Civilizatiom . . «© 2 « « + \ « 403 
Christianity and. Ethics oy) elie) les Mammen tise ele 
The Success) of ‘Christianity 06 00.46! /5" ene a ed ee 
The Prophecies . . ck oil RENNey em eee 
The Universality of Religious Belief . 4 ar at i a 
Ts\Christianity the ‘Only ‘Hope’? iy yee his.) a eg 
Spiritual ‘Discernment p00) 00. 0 eel ae 
Some other Apologies) .)4 Misi a) 8) at) ae 
Counsels of (Despagr! i) os \yste 0021 te RR a ee a Rees 

CoNncLUSION — 


The Parting ‘of the Ways sis) ve ene eaten an ima 


GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


THE SIN OF UNBELIEF 


HuxXLEy quotes with satirical gusto Dr. Wace’s declara- 
tion as to the word “Infidel.”’ Said Dr. Wace: “The 
word infidel, perhaps, carries an unpleasant significance. 
Perhaps it is right that it should. It is, and it ought 
to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say 
plainly that he does not believe in Jesus Christ.” 

Be it pleasant or unpleasant to be an unbeliever, one 
- thing is quite clear: religious people intend the word 
Infidel to carry “an unpleasant significance” when they 
apply to it one. It is in their minds a term of reproach. 
Because they think it 1s wicked to deny what they believe. 

To call a man Infidel, then, is tacitly to accuse him of 
a kind of moral turpitude. 

But a little while ago, to be an Infidel was to be so- 
cially taboo. But a little while earlier, to be an Infidel 
was to be persecuted. But a little earlier still, to be an 
Infidel was to be an outlaw, subject to the penalty of 
death. | 

Now, it is evident that to visit the penalty of social 
ostracism or public contumely upon all who reject the 
popular religion is to erect an arbitrary barrier against 
intellectual and spiritual advance, and to put a protective 
tariff upon orthodoxy to the disadvantage of science and 
free thought. 

The root of the idea that it is wicked to reject the 


17, 


18 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


popular religion—a wickedness of which Christ and 
Socrates and Buddha are all represented to have been 
guilty — thrives in the belief that the Scriptures are the 
actual words of God, and that to deny the truth of the 
Scriptures is to deny and to affront God. 

But the difficulty of the unbeliever lies in the fact that 
he cannot believe the Scriptures to be the actual words 
of God. 

The Infidel, therefore, is not denying God’s words, 
nor disobeying God’s commands: he is denying the words 
and disobeying the commands of men. 

No man who knew that there was a good and wise 
God would be so foolish as to deny that God. No man 
would reject the words of God if he knew that God 
spoke those words. 

But the doctrine of the divine origin of the Scriptures 
rests upon the authority of the Church; and the differ- 
ence between the Infidel and the Christian is that the 
Infidel rcjects and the Christian accepts the authority 
of the Church. 

Belief and unbelief are not matters of moral excel- 
lence or depravity: they are questions of evidence. 

The Christian believes the Scriptures because they are 
the words of God. But he believes they are the words 
of God because some other man has told him so. 

Let him probe the matter to the bottom, and he will 
inevitably find that his authority is human, and not, as 
he supposes, divine. 

For you, my Christian friend, have never seen God. 
You have never heard God’s voice. You have received 
from God no message in spoken or written words. You 
have no direct divine warrant for the divine authorship 
of the Scriptures. The authority on which your belief 


THE SIN OF UNBELIEF 19 


in the divine revelation rests consists entirely of the 
Scriptures themselves and the statements of the Church. 
But the Church is composed solely of human beings, 
and the Scriptures were written and translated and 
printed solely by human beings. 

You believe that the Ten Commandments were dic- 
tated to Moses by God. But God has not told you so. 
You only believe the statement of the unknown author 
of the Pentateuch that God told him so. You do not 
know who Moses was. You do not know who wrote 
the Pentateuch. You do not know who edited and trans- 
lated the Scriptures. ! 

Clearly, then, you accept the Scriptures upon the au- 
thority of unknown men, and upon no other demonstrable 
authority whatever. 

Clearly, then, to doubt the doctrine of the divine rev- 
elation of the Scriptures is not to doubt the word of 
God, but to doubt the words of men. 

But the Christian seems to suspect the Infidel of reject- 
ing the Christian religion out of sheer wantonness, oF 
from some base or sinister motive. 

The fact being, that the Infidel can only believe those 
things which his own reason tells him are true. He 
opposes the popular religion because his reason tells 
him it is not true, and because his reason tells him 
insistently that a religion that is not true is not good, 
but bad. In thus obeying the dictates of his own reason, 
and in thus advocating what to him seems good and 
true, the Infidel is acting honorably, and is as well 
within his right as any Pope or Prelate. 

That base or mercenary motives should be laid to the 
charge of the Infidel seems to me as absurd as that base 
or mercenary motives should be laid to the charge of 


20 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the Socialist. The answer to such libels stares us in 
the face. Socialism and Infidelity are not popular, nor 
profitable, nor respectable. 

If you wish to lose caste, to miss preferment, to en- 
danger your chances of gaining money and repute, turn 
Infidel and turn Socialist. . 

Briefly, Infidelity does not pay. It is “not a pleasant 
thing to be an Infidel.’ 

The Christian thinks it his duty to “make it an un- 
pleasant thing” to. deny the “true faith.’ He thinks 
it his duty to protect God, and to revenge His outraged 
name upon the Infidel and the Heretic. The Jews 
thought the same. The Mohammedan thinks the same. 
How many cruel and sanguinary wars has that pre- 
sumptuous belief inspired? How many persecutions, 
outrages, martyrdoms, and massacres have been perpe- 
trated by fanatics who have been “jealous for the 
Lord”? 

As I write these lines Christians are murdering Jews 
in Russia, and Mohammedans are murdering Christians 
in Macedonia to the glory of God. Is God so weak that 
He needs foolish men’s defense? Is He so feeble that 
He cannot judge nor avenge? 

My Christian friend, so jealous for the Lord, did you 
ever regard your hatred of “ Heretics” and “ Infidels ” 
in the light of history? 

The history of civilization is the history of successions 
of brave “ Heretics” and “ Infidels,’ who have denied 
false dogmas or brought new truths to light. 

The righteous men, the “true believers” of the day, 
have cursed these heroes and reviled them, have tor- 
tured, scourged, or murdered them. And the children 
of the “ True Believers” have adopted the heresies as 


THE SIN OF UNBELIEF 21 


true, and have glorified the dead Heretics, and. then 
turned round to curse or murder the new Heretic who 
fain would lead them a little further toward the light. 

Copernicus, who first solved the mystery of the Solar 
System, was excommunicated for heresy. But Chris- 
tians acknowledge now that the earth goes round the 
sun, and the name of Copernicus is honored. 

Bruno, who first declared the stars to be suns, and 
“led forth Arcturus and his host,’ was burnt at the 
stake for heresy. 

Galileo, the father of telescopic astronomy, was threat- 
ened with death for denying the errors of the Church, 
was put in prison and tortured as a heretic. Christians 
acknowledge now that Galileo spoke the truth, and his 
name is honored. 

As it has been demonstrated in eee cases, it has been 
demonstrated in thousands of other cases, that the Her- 
etics have been right, and the True Believers have been 
wrong. 

Step by step the Church has retreated. Time after 
time the Church has come to accept the truths, for telling 
which She persecuted, or murdered, her teachers. But 
still the True Believers hate the Heretic, and regard it 
as a righteous act to make it “unpleasant” to be an 
“ Infidel.” 

After taking a hundred steps away from old dogmas 
and towards the truth, the True Believer shudders at 
the request to take one more. After two thousand years 
of foolish and wicked persecution of good men, the 
True Believer remains faithful to the tradition that it 
“ought to be an unpleasant thing ” to expose the errors 
of the Church. 

The Christians used to declare that all the millions 


22 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


of men and women outside the Christian Church would 
“burn forever in burning Hell.” They do not like to 
be reminded of that folly now. 

They used to declare that every unbaptized baby would 
go to Hell and burn forever in fire and brimstone. 
They do not like to be reminded of that folly now. 

They used to believe in witchcraft, and they burned 
millions — yes, millions — of innocent women as witches. 
They do not like to hear of witchcraft now. 

They used to believe the legends of Adam and Eve, 
and the Flood. They call them allegories now. 

They used to believe that the world was made in six 
days. Now they talk mildly about “ geological periods.” 

They used to denounce Darwinism as impious and 
absurd. They have since “cheerfully accepted” the 
theory of evolution. 

They used to believe that the sun revolved round the 
earth, and that he who thought otherwise was an Infidel, 
and would be damned in the “bottomless pit.” But 
now ! Now they declare that Christ was God, and 
His mother a virgin; that three persons are one person, 
that those who trust in Jesus shall go to Heaven, and 
those who do not trust in Jesus will be “lost.” And if 
any one denies these statements, they call him Infidel. 


Are you not aware, friend Christian, that what was 
Infidelity is now orthodoxy? It is even so. Heresies 
for which men used to be burned alive are now openly 
accepted by the Church. There is not a divine living 
who would not have been burned at the stake three cen- 
turies ago for expressing the beliefs he now holds. Yet 
you call a man Infidel for being a century in advance 
of you. History has taught you nothing. It has not 
occurred to you that as the “ infidelity ” of yesterday has 


THE SIN OF UNBELIEF 23 


become the enlightened religion of to-day, it is possible 
that the “ infidelity’ of to-day may become the enlight- 
ened religion of to-morrow. 

Civilization is built up of the “ heresies” of men who 
thought freely and spoke bravely. Those men were 
called “ Infidels” when they were alive. But now they 
are called the benefactors of the world. 

Infidel! The name has been borne, good Christian, 
by some of the noblest of our race. I take it from you 
with a smile. I am an easiful old pagan, and I am not 
angry with you at all—you funny little champion of 
the Most High. 


ONE REASON 


I HAVE been asked why I have opposed Christianity. I 
have several reasons, which shall appear in due course. 
At present I offer one. 

I oppose Christianity because it is not true. 

No honest man will ask for any other reason. 

But it may be asked why I say that Christianity is not 
true; and that is a very proper question, which I shall 
do my best to answer. 


24 


WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT BELIEVE 


I HOPE it will not be supposed that I have any personal 
animus against Christians or Christian ministers, al- 
though I am hostile to the Church. Many ministers and 
many Christian laymen I have known are admirable men. 
Some I know personally are as able and as good as any 
men I have met; but I speak of the Churches, not of 
individuals. 

I have known Catholic priests and sisters who were 
worthy and charming, and there are many such; but 1 
do not like the Catholic Church. I have known Tories 
and Liberals who were real good fellows, and clever 
fellows, and there are many such; but I do not like the 
Liberal and Tory parties. I have known clergymen of 
the Church of England who were real live men, and 
real English gentlemen, and there are many such; but I 
do not like the Church. 

I was not always an Agnostic, or a Rationalist, or 
an “ Infidel,” or whatever Christians may choose to call 
me. 

I was not perverted by an Infidel book. I had not 
read one when I wavered first in my allegiance to the 
orthodoxies. I was set doubting by a religious book 
written to prove the “ Verity of Christ’s Resurrection 
from the Dead.” But as a child I was thoughtful, and 
asked myself questions, as many children do, which the 
Churches would find it hard to answer to-day. 

I have not ceased to believe what I was taught as a 
child because I have grown wicked. I have ceased to 


25, 


26 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


’ believe it because, after twenty years’ hard thinking, I 
cannot believe it. 

I cannot believe, then, that the Christian religion is 
true. 

I cannot believe that the Bible is the word of God. 
For the word of God would be above criticism and be- 
yond disproof, and the Bible is not above criticism nor 
beyond disproof. 

I cannot believe that any religion has been revealed 
to Man by God. Because a revealed religion would be 
perfect, but no known religion is perfect; and because 
history and science show: us that known religions have 
not been revealed, but have been evolved from other 
religions. There is no important feature of the Chris- 
tian religion which can be called original. All the rites, 
mysteries, and doctrines of Christianity have been bor- 
rowed from older faiths. 

I cannot believe that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is 
the Creator of the known universe. The Bible God, 
Jehovah, is a man-made God, evolved from the idol of 
an obscure and savage tribe. The Bible shows us this 
quite plainly. | 

I cannot believe that the Bible and the Testament are 
historically true. I regard most of the events they re- 
cord as fables, and most of their characters as myths. 

I cannot believe in the existence of Jesus Christ, nor 
Buddha, nor Moses. I believe that these are ideal char- 
acters constructed from still more ancient legends and 
traditions. 

I cannot believe that the Bible version of the relations 
of man and God is correct. For that version, and all 
other religious versions known to me, represents man 
as sinning against or forsaking God, and God as punish- 
ing or pardoning man. 


WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT BELIEVE 27 


But if God made man, then God 1s responsible for all 
man’s acts and thoughts, and therefore man cannot sin 
against God. 

And if man could not sin against God, but could only 
act as God ordained that he should act, then it is against 
teason to suppose that God could be angry with man, 
or could punish man, or see any offense for which to 
pardon man. 

I cannot believe that man has ever forsaken God. 
Because history shows that man has from the earliest 
times been eagerly and pitifully seeking God, and has 
served and praised and sacrificed to God with a zeal 
akin to madness. But God has made no sign. 

I cannot believe that man was at the first created 
“ perfect,” and that he “ fell.” (How could the perfect 
fall?) I believe the theory of evolution, which shows 
not a fall but a gradual rise. 

I cannot believe that God is a loving “ Heavenly 
Father,” taking a tender interest in mankind. Because 
He has never interfered to prevent the horrible cruelties 
and injustices of man to man, and because he has per- 
mitted evil to rule the world. I cannot reconcile the 
idea of a tender Heavenly Father with the known hor- 
rors of war, slavery, pestilence, and insanity. I cannot 
discern the hand of a loving Father in the slums, in the 
earthquake, in the cyclone. I cannot understand the in- 
difference of a loving Father to the law of prey, nor to 
the terrors and tortures of leprosy, cancer, cholera, and 
consumption. 

I cannot believe that God is a personal God, who inter- 
venes in human affairs. I cannot see in science, nor in 
experience, nor in history any signs of such a God, nor 
of such intervention. 

I cannot believe that God hears and answers prayer, 


28 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


because the universe is governed by laws, and there is 
no reason to suppose that those laws are ever interfered 
with. Besides, an all-wise God knows what to do better. 
than man can tell Him, and a just God would act justly 
without requiring to be reminded of His duty by one of 
His creatures. 

I cannot believe that miracles ever could or ever did 
happen. Because the universe is governed by laws, and 
there is no credible instance on record of those laws 
being suspended. 

I cannot believe that God “created” man, aS man 
now is, by word of mouth and in a moment. I accept 
the theory of evolution, which teaches that man was 
slowly evolved by natural process from lower forms of 
life, and that this evolution took millions of years. 

I cannot believe that Jesus Christ was God, nor that 
He was the Son of God. There is no solid evidence 
for the miracle of the Incarnation, and I see no reason 
for the Incarnation. 

I cannot believe that Christ died to save man from 
Hell, nor that He died to save man from sin. Because 

I do not believe God would condemn the human race 
to eternal torment for being no better than He had made 
them, and because I do not see that the death of Christ 
has saved man from sin. 

I cannot believe that God would think it necessary to 
come on earth as a man, and die on the Cross. Because 
if that was to atone for man’s sin, it was needless, as 
God could have forgiven man without Himself suffering. 

I cannot believe that God would send His son to die 
‘on the Cross. Because He could have forgiven man 
without subjecting His son to pain. | 

I cannot accept any doctrine of atonement. Because 
to forgive the guilty because the innocent had suffered 


WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT BELIEVE 29 


would be unjust and unreasonable, and to forgive the 
guilty because a third person begged for his pardon 
would be unjust. 

I cannot believe that a good God would allow sin to 
enter the world. Because He would hate sin and would 
have power to destroy or to forbid it. 

I cannot believe that a good God would create or 
tolerate a Devil, nor that he would allow the Devil to 
tempt man. 

I cannot believe the story of the virgin birth of Christ. 
Because for a man to be born of a virgin would be a 
miracle, and I cannot believe in miracles. 

I cannot believe the story of Christ’s resurrection from 
the dead. Because that would be a miracle, and because 
there is no solid evidence that it occurred. 

I cannot believe that faith in the Godhood of Christ is 
necessary to virtue or to happiness. Because I know that 
some holding such faith are neither happy nor virtuous, 
and that some are happy and virtuous who do not hold 
that faith. 

The differences between the religious and the scientific 
theories, or, as I should put it, between superstition and 
rationalism, are clearly marked and irreconcilable. 

The supernaturalist stands by “ creation”: the ration- 
alist stands by “evolution.” It is impossible to reduce 
these opposite ideas to a common denominator. 

The creation theory alleges that the earth, and the sun, 
and the moon, and man, and the animals were “ created ” 
by God, instantaneously, by word of mouth, out of noth- 
ing. 

The evolution theory alleges that they were evolved, 
slowly, by natural processes out of previously existing 
matter. . 

The supernaturalist alleges that religion was revealed to 


30 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


man by God, and that the form of this revelation is a sa- 
cred book. 

The rationalist alleges that religion was evolved by slow 
degrees and by human minds, and that all existing forms 
of religion and all existing “sacred books,’ instead of 
being “ revelations,” are evolutions from religious ideas 
and forms and legends of prehistoric times. It is impos- 
sible to reduce these opposite theories to a common de- 
nominator. 

The Christians, the Hindoos, the Parsees, the Bud- 
dhists, and the Mohammedans have each their “ Holy 
Bible” or “sacred book.” Each religion claims that its 
own Bible is the direct revelation of God, and is the only 
true Bible teaching the only true faith. Each religion 
regards all the other religions as spurious. 

The supernaturalists believe in miracles, and each sect 
claims that the miracles related in its own inspired sacred 
book prove the truth of that book and of the faith taught 
therein. } 

No religion accepts the truth of any other religion’s 
miracles. The Hindoo, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, 
the Parsee, the Christian each believes that his miracles 
are the only real miracles. 

The Protestant denies the miracles of the Roman 
Catholic. 

The rationalist denies all miracles alike. ‘“ Miracles 
never happen.” 

The Christian Bible is full of miracles. The Christian 
Religion is founded on miracles. 

No rationalist believes in miracles. Therefore no ra- 
tionalist can accept the Christian Religion. , 

If you discard “ Creation” and accept evolution; if you 
discard “revelation” and accept evolution; if you dis- 
card miracles and accept natural law, there is nothing 


WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT BELIEVE 31 


left of the Christian Religion but the life and teachings 
of Jesus Christ. 

And when one sees that all religions and all ethics, even 
the oldest known, have, like all language and all science 
and all philosophy and all existing species of animals and 
plants, been slowly evolved from lower and ruder forms; 
and when one learns that there have been many Christs, 
and that the evidence of the life of Jesus is very slight, 
and that all the acts and words of Jesus had been antici- 
pated by other teachers long before the Christian era, then 
it is borne in upon one’s mind that the historic basis of 
Christianity is very frail. And when one realizes that 
the Christian theology, besides being borrowed from older 
religions, is manifestly opposed to reason and to facts, 
then one reaches a state of mind which entitles the ortho- 
dox Christian to call one an “ Infidel,” and to make it 
“unpleasant ” for one to the glory of God. 

That is the position in which I stand at present, and it 
is partly to vindicate that position, and to protest against 
those who feel as I feel being subjected to various kinds 
af “ unpleasantness,” that I undertake this Apology. 


ia 


4 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 


THE question of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures 
is one of great importance. 

If the Bible is a divine revelation, if it contains the 
actual word of God, and nothing but the word of God, 
then it is folly to doubt any statement it contains. 

If the Bible is merely the work of men, if it contains 
only the words of men, then, like all other human work, 
the Bible is fallible, and must submit to criticism and ex- 
amination, as all fallible human work must. 

The Christian Religion stands or falls by the truth of 
the Bible. 

If the Bible is the word of God the Bible must be true, 
and the Christian Religion must be true. 

But, as I said before, the claim for the divine origin of 
the Bible has not been made by God, but by men. 

We have therefore no means of testing the Bible’s title 
to divine revelation other than by criticism and examina- 
tion of the Bible itself. 

If the Bible is the word of God — the all-wise and per- 
fect God — the Bible will be perfect. If the Bible is not 
perfect it cannot be the word of a God who is perfect. 

The Bible is not perfect. Historically, scientifically, 
and ethically the Bible is imperfect. 

If the Bible is the word of God it will present to us the 
perfect God as He is, and every act of His it records will 
be perfection. But the Bible does not show us a perfect 
God, but a very imperfect God, and such of His acts as 
the Bible records are imperfect. 

I say, then, with strong conviction, that I do not believe 


35 


36 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the Bible to be the word of God; that I do not believe it 
to be inspired of God; that I do not believe it to contain 
any divine revelation of God to man. Why? 

Let us consider the claim that the Bible is the word of 
God. Let us, first of all, consider it from the common- 
sense point of view, as ordinary men of the world, trying 
to get at the truth and the reason of a thing. ; 

What would one naturally expect in a revelation by God 
to man? 

I. We should expect God to reveal truths of which 
mankind were ignorant. 

2. We should expect God to make no errors of fact in 
His revelation. 

3. We should expect God to make His revelation so 
clear and so definite that it could be neither misunder- 
stood nor misrepresented. 

4. We should expect God to insure that His revelation 
should reach all men; and should reach all men directly 
and quickly. 

5. We should expect God’s revelation of the relations 
existing between Himself and man to be true. 

6. We should expect the ethical code in God’s revela- 
tion to be complete, and final, and perfect. The divine 
ethics should at least be above human criticism and be- 
yond human amendment. 

To what extent does the Bible revelation fulfill the 
above natural expectations? 

1. Does the Bible reveal any new moral truths? 

I cannot speak very positively, but I think there is very 
little moral truth in the Bible which has not been, or will 
not be, traced back to more ancient times and religions. 

2. Does the Bible revelation contain no errors of fact? 

I claim that it contains many errors of fact, and the 
Higher Criticism supports the claim; as we shall see. 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 37 


3. Is the Bible revelation so clear and explicit that no 
difference of opinion as to its meaning is possible? 

No. It is not. No one living can claim anything of 
the kind. 

4. Has God’s revelation, as given in the Bible, reached 
all men? 

No. After thousands of years it is not yet known to 
one-half the human race. 

5. Is God’s revelation of the relations between man and 
God true? 

I claim that it is not true. For the word of God makes 
it appear that man was created by God in His own image, 
and that man sinned against God. Whereas man, being 
only what God made him, and having only the powers 
God gave him, could not sin against God, any more than 
a steam-engine can sin against the engineer who designed 
and built it. 

6. Is the ethical code of the Bible complete, and final, 
and perfect? 

No. The ethical code of the Bible gradually develops 
and improves. Had it been divine it would have been 
perfect from the first. It is because it is human that it 
develops. As the prophets and the poets of the Jews 
grew wiser, and gentler, and more enlightened, so the 
revelation of God grew wiser and gentler with them. 
Now, God would know from the beginning; but men 
would have to learn. Therefore the Bible writings would 
appear to be human, and not divine. 

Let us look over these points again, and make the mat- 
ter still clearer and more simple. 

If the children of an earthly father had wandered away 
and forgotten him, and were, for lack of guidance, living 
evil lives ; and if the earthly father wished his children to 
know that they were his children, wished them to know 


38 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


what he had done for them, what they owed to him, what 
penalty they might fear, or reward they might ask from 
him; if he wished them to live cleanly and justly, and to 
love him, and at last come home to him — what would 
that earthly father do? 

He would send his message to all his children, instead 
of sending it to one, and trusting him to repeat it cor- 
rectly to the others. He would try to so word his mes- 
sage as that all his children might understand it. 

He would send his children the very best rules of life 
he knew. He would take great pains to avoid error in 
matters of fact. 

If, after the message was sent, his children quarreled 
and fought about its meaning, their earthly father would 
not sit silent and allow them to hate and slay each other, 
because of a misconception; but would send at once, and 
make his meaning plain to all. 

And if an earthly father would act thus wisely and 
thus kindly, “how much more your Father which is in 
Heaven ”? 

But the Bible revelation was not given to all the people 
of the earth. It was given to a handful of Jews. It was 
not so explicit as to make disagreement impossible. It 
is thousands of years since the revelation of God began, 
and yet to-day it is not known to hundreds of millions 
of human beings, and amongst those whom it has reached 
there is endless bitter disagreement as to its meaning. 

Now, what is the use of a revelation which does not 
reveal more than is known, which does not reveal truth 
only, which does not reach half those who need it, which 
cannot be understood by those it does reach? — 

But you will regard me as a prejudiced witness. I 
shall therefore, in my effort to prove the Bible fallible, 
quote almost wholly from Christian critics. 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 39 


And I take the opportunity to here recommend very 
strongly Shall We Understand the Bible, by the Rev. T. 
Rhondda Williams; Adam & Charles Black. Is. net. 

There are two chief theories as to the inspiration of 
the Bible. One is the old theory that the Bible is the 
actual word of God, and nothing but the word of God, 
directly revealed by God to Moses and the prophets. 
The other is the new theory: that the Bible is the work of © 
many men whom God had inspired to speak or write th 
truth. ) 

The old theory is well described by Dr. Washington 
Gladden in the following passage: 


They imagine that the Bible must have originated in a manner 
purely miraculous; and, though they know very little about its 
origin, they conceive of it as a book that was written in heaven 
in the English tongue, divided there into chapters and verses, 
with headlines and reference marks, printed in small pica, bound 
in calf, and sent down by angels in its present form. 


The newer idea of the inspiration of the Bible is also 
well expressed by Dr. Gladden; thus: 


Revelation, we shall be able to understand, is not the dicta- 
tion by God of words to men that they may be written down in 
books: it is rather the disclosure of the truth and love of God 
to men in the processes of history, in the development of the 
moral order of the world. It is the light that lighteth every 
man, shining in the paths that lead to righteousness and life. 
There is a moral leadership of God in history; revelation is the 
record of that leadership. It is by no means confined to words; 
its most impressive disclosures are in the field of action. “Thus 
did the Lord,” as Dr. Bruce has said, is a more perfect formula 
of revelation than “Thus saith the Lord.” It is in that great 
historical movement of which the Bible is the record that we 
find the revelation of God to men. 


The old theory of Bible inspiration was, as I have said, 
the theory that the Bible was the actual and pure word 
of God, and was true in every circumstance and detail. 

Now, if an almighty and all-wise God had spoken or 
written every word of the Bible, then that book would, of 


40 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


course, be wholly and unshakably true in its every state- 
ment. | 

But if the Bible was written by men, some of them 
more or less inspired, then it would not, in all probability, 
be wholly perfect. 

The more inspiration its writers had from God, the 
more perfect it would be. The less inspiration its writers 
had from God, the less perfect it would be. 

Wholly perfect, it might be attributed to a perfect 
being. Partly perfect, it might be the work of less per- 
fect beings. Less perfect, it would have to be put down 
to less perfect beings. 

Containing any fault or error, it could not be the actual 
word of God, and the more errors and faults it contained, 
the less inspiration of God would be granted to its au- 
thors. 

I will quote again from Dr. Gladden: 


What I desire to show is, that the work of putting the Bible 
into its present form was not done in heaven, but on earth; that 
it was not done by angels, but by men; that it was not done all 
at once, but a little at a time, the work of preparing and per- 
fecting it extending over several centuries, and employing the 
labors of many men in different lands and long-divided genera- 
tions. 


I now turn to Dr. Aked. On page 25 of his book, 
Changing Creeds, he says: 


Ignorance has claimed the Bible for its own. Bigotry has 
made the Bible its battleground. Its phrases have become the 
shibboleth of pietistic sectarians. Its authority has been evoked 
in support of the foulest crimes committed by the vilest men; 
and its very existence has been made a pretext for theories 
which shut out God from His own world. In our day Bible- 
worship has become, with many very good but very unthoughtful 
people, a disease. 


So much for the attitude of the various schools of re- 
ligious thought towards the Bible. 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 41! 


Now, in the opinion of these Christian teachers, 1s the 
Bible perfect or imperfect? Dr. Aked gives his opinion 
with characteristic candor and energy: 

For observe the position: men are told that the Bible is the 
infallible revelation of God to man, and that its statements con- 
cerning God and man are to be unhesitatingly accepted as state- 
ments made upon the authority of God. They turn to its pages, 
and they find historical errors, arithmetical mistakes, scientific 
blunders (or, rather, blunders most unscientific), inconsistencies, 
and manifold contradictions; and, what is far worse, they find 
that the most horrible crimes are committed by men who calmly 
plead in justification of their terrible misdeeds the imperturbable 
“God said.” The heart and conscience of man indignantly re- 
bel against the representations of the Most High given in some 
parts of the Bible. What happens? Why, such men declare — 
are now declaring, and will in constantly increasing numbers, 
and with constantly increasing force and boldness declare — that 
they can have nothing to do with a book whose errors a child 
can discover, and whose revelation of God partakes at times of 
blasphemy against man. ; 


I need hardly say that I agree with every word of the 
above. If any one asked me what evidence exists in sup- 
port of the claims that the Bible is the word of God, or 
that it was in any real sense of the words “ divinely in- 
spired,” I should answer, without the least hesitation, that 
there does not exist a scrap of evidence of any kind in 
support of such a claim. 

Let us give a little consideration to the origin of the 
Bible. The first five books of the Bible, called the Penta- 
teuch, were said to be written by Moses. Moses was not, 
and could not, have been the author of those books. 
There is, indeed, no reliable evidence to prove that Moses 
ever existed. Whether he was a fictitious hero, or a solar 
myth, or what he was, no man knows. 

Neither does there appear to be any certainty that the 
biblical books attributed to David, to Solomon, to Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, and the rest were really written by those kings 
or prophets, or even in their age. 


42 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


And after these books, or many of them, had been writ- 
ten, they were entirely lost, and are said to have been re- 
produced by Ezra. 

Add to these facts that the original Hebrew had no 
vowels, that many of the sacred books were written with- 
out vowels, and that the vowels were added long after; 
and remember that, as Dr. Aked says, the oldest Hebrew 
Bible in existence belongs to the tenth century after 
Christ; and it will begin to appear that the claim for 
biblical infallibility is utterly absurd. 

But I must not offer these statements on my own au- 
thority. Let us return to Dr. Gladden. On page rr of 
Who Wrote the Bible? I find the following: 

The first of these holy books of the Jews was, then, The Law, 
contained in the first five books of our Bible, known among us 
as_ the Pentateuch, and called by the Jews sometimes simply 


he Law,” and sometimes “ The Law of Moses.” This was 
supposed to be the oldest portion of their Scriptures, and was by 


appeal is most often to the law of Moses. 


The sacredness of the five books of “ The Law,” then, 
rests upon the belief that they were written by Moses, 
who had spoken face to face with God. 

So that if Moses did not write those books, their sa- 
credness is a myth. Now, on page 42, Dr. Gladden says: 


1, Lhe Pentateuch could never have been written by any one 
man, inspired or otherwise. 


On page 4s Dr. Gladden, again speaking of the Penta- 
teuch, says: 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 43 


But the story of Genesis goes back to a remote antiquity. The 
last event related in that book occurred four hundred years be- 
fore Moses was born; it was as distant from him as the dis- 
covery of America by Columbus is from us; and other portions 
of the narrative, such as the stories of the Flood and the Cre- 
ation, stretch back into the shadows of the age which precedes 
history. Neither Moses nor any one living in his day could 
have given us these reports from his own knowledge. Whoever 
wrote this must have obtained his materials in one of three ways: 

1. They might have been given to him by divine revelation 
from God. 

2. He might have gathered them up from oral tradition, from 
stories, folklore, transmitted from mouth to mouth, and so pre- 
served from generation to generation. 

3.*He might have found them in written documents existing 
at the time of his writing. 


As many of the laws and incidents in the books of 
Moses were known to the Chaldeans, the “ direct revela- 
tion of God” theory is not plausible. On this point Dr. 
Gladden’s opinion supports mine. He says, on page 61: 


That such is the fact with respect to the structure of these 
ancient writings is now beyond question. And our theory of 
inspiration must be adjusted to this fact. Evidently neither the 
theory of verbal inspiration, nor.the theory of plenary inspira- 
tion, can be made to fit the facts which a careful study of the 
writings themselves brings before us. These writings are not 
inspired in the sense which we have commonly given that word. 
The verbal theory of inspiration was only tenable while they 
were supposed to be the work of a single author. To such a 
composite literature no such theory will apply. “To make this 
claim,’ says Professor Ladd, ‘and yet accept the best ascer- 
tained results of criticism, would compel us to take such posi- 
tions as the following: the original authors of each one of the 
writings which enter into the composite structure were infallibly 
inspired; every one who made any changes in any one of these 
fundamental writings was infallibly inspired; every compiler 
who put together two or more of these writings was infallibly 
inspired, both as to his selections and omissions, and as to any 
connecting or explanatory words which he might himself write; 
every redactor was infallibly inspired to correct and supplement, 
and omit that which was the product of previous infallible in- 
spirations. Or, perhaps, it might seem more convenient to at- 
tack the claim of a plenary inspiration to the last redactor of 
all; but then we should probably have selected of all others the 
one least able to bear the weight of such a claim. Think of 
making the claim for a plenary inspiration of the Pentateuch in 
its present form on the ground of the infallibility of that one 


44 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


of the scribes who gave it its last touches some time subsequent 
to the death of Ezra.” 


Remember that Dr. Gladden declares, on page 5, that 
he shall state no conclusions as to the history of the 
sacred writings which will not be accepted by conserva- 
tive critics. 


On page 54 Dr. Gladden quotes the following from 
Dr. Perowne: 


The first composition of the Pentateuch as a whole could not 
have taken place till after the Israelites entered Canaan. 

The whole work did not finally assume its present shapé till 
its revision was undertaken by Ezra after the return from the 
Babylonish captivity. 


On page 25 Dr. Gladden himself speaks as follows: 


The common argument by which Christ is made a witness to 
the authenticity and infallible authority of the Old Testament 
runs as follows: 

Christ quotes Moses as the author of this legislation; there- 
fore Moses must have written the whole ‘Pentateuch. Moses 
was an inspired prophet; therefore all the teaching of the Penta- 
-teuch must be infallible. 


The facts are that Jesus nowhere testifies that Moses wrote | 


the whole of the Pentateuch; and that he nowhere guarantees 
the infallibility either of Moses or of the book. On the con- 
trary, he set aside as inadequate or morally defective, certain 
laws which in this book are ascribed to Moses. 

So much for the authorship and the inspiration of the 
first five books of the Bible. 

As to the authorship of other books of the Bible, Dr. 
Gladden says of Judges and Samuel, that we do not know 
the authors nor the dates. 

Of Kings he says: “The name of the author is con- 
cealed from us.” The origin and correctness of the 
Prophecies and Psalms, he tells us, are problematical. 

Of the Books of Esther and Daniel, Dr. Gladden says: 
“That they are founded on fact I do not doubt ; but it 
is, perhaps, safer to regard them both rather as historical 
fictions than as veritable histories.” 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? $45 


Of Daniel, Dean Farrar wrote: 


The immense majority of scholars of name and acknowledged 
competence in England and Europe have now been led to form 
an irresistible conclusion that the Book of Daniel was not writ- 
ten, and could not have been written, in its present form, by 
the prophet Daniel, B.C. 534, but that it can only have been 
written, as we now have it, in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, 
about B.C. 164, and that the object of the pious and patriotic 
author was to inspirit his desponding countrymen by splendid 
specimens of that lofty moral fiction which was always common 
amongst the Jews after the Exile, and was known as “The 
Haggadah.” So clearly is this proven to most critics, that they 
willingly suffer the attempted refutations of their views to sink 
to the ground under the weight of their own inadequacy. 


I return now to Dr. Aked, from whose book I quote 
the following: 


Dr. Clifford has declared that there is not a man who has 
given a day’s attention to the question who holds the complete 
freedom of the Bible from inaccuracy. He has added that “it 
is become more and more impossible to affirm the inerrancy of 
the Bible.” Dr. Lyman Abbott says that “an infallible book is 
an impossible conception, and to-day no one really believes that 
our present Bible is such a book.” 


Compare those opinions with the following extract from 
this first article in The Bible and the Child: 


The change of view respecting the Bible, which has marked 
the advancing knowledge and more earnest studies of this gen- 
eration, is only the culmination of the discovery that there were 
different documents in the Book of Genesis—a discovery first 
published by the physician, Jean Astruc, in 1753. There are 
three widely divergent ways of dealing with these results of 
profound study, each of which is almost equally dangerous to the 
faith of the rising generation. 

1. Parents and teachers may go on inculcating dogmas about 
the Bible and methods of dealing with it which have long be- 
come impossible to those who have really tried to follow the 
manifold discoveries of modern inquiry with perfectly open and 
unbiased minds. There are a certain number of persons who, 
when their minds have become stereotyped in foregone conclu- 
sions, are simply incapable of grasping new truths. They be- 
come obstructives, and not infrequently bigoted obstructives. As 
convinced as the Pope of their own personal infallibility, their 


1 The Bible and the Child. 


46 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


attitude towards those who see that' the old views are no longer 
tenable is an attitude of anger and alarm. This is the usual 
temper of the odium theologicum. It would, if it could, grasp 
the thumbscrew and the rack of medieval Inquisitors, and would, 
in the last resource, hand over all opponents to the scaffold or 
the stake. Those whose intellects have thus been petrified by 
custom and advancing years are, of all others, the most hope- 
less to deal with. They have made themselves incapable of fair 
and rational examination of the truths which they impugn. They 
think that they can, by mere assertion, overthrow results ar- 
rived at by the lifelong inquiries of the ablest students, while 
they have not given a day’s serious or impartial study to them. 
They fancy that even the ignorant, if only they be what is called 
“orthodox,” are justified in strong denunciation of men quite 
as truthful, and often incomparably more able than themselves. 
Off-hand dogmatists of this stamp, who usually abound among 
professional religionists, think that they can refute any number 
of scholars, however profound and however pious, if only they 
shout “Infidel” with sufficient loudness. 


Those are not the words of an “ Infidel.” They are 
the words of the late Dean Farrar. 

To quote again from Dr. Gladden: 

Evidently neither the theory of verbal inspiration, nor the 
theory of plenary inspiration, can be made to fit the facts which 
a careful study of the writings themselves brings before us. 
These writings are not inspired in the sense which we have com- 
monly given to that word. The verbal theory of inspiration was 
only tenable while they were supposed to be the work of a single 
author. To such a composite literature no such theory will apply. 

The Bible is not inspired. The fact is, that no “ sa- 
cred ” book is inspired. All “ sacred” books are the work 
of human minds. All ideas of God are human ideas. 
All religions are made by man. 

When the old-fashioned Christian said the Bible was 
an inspired book, he meant that God put the words and 
the facts directly into the mind of the prophet. That 
meant that God told Moses about the creation, Adam 
and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, and the Ten 
Commandments. 

Many modern Christians, amongst whom I place the 
Rev. Ambrose Pope, of Bakewell, believe that God gave 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 47 


Moses (and all the other prophets) a special genius, and 
a special desire to convey religious information to other 
men. 

And Mr. Pope suggests that man was so ignorant, so 
childlike, or so weak in those days that it was necessary 
to disguise plain facts in misleading symbols. 

But the man, Moses or another, who wrote the Book 
of Genesis was a man of literary genius. He was no 
child, no weakling. If God had said to him: “I made 
the world out of the fiery nebula, and I made the sea to 
bring forth the staple of life, and I caused all living things 
to develop from that seed or staple of life, and I drew 
man out from the brutes; and the time was six hundred 
millions of years.” If God had said that to Moses, do 
you think Moses would not have understood ? 

Now, let me show you what the Christian asks us to 
believe. He asks us to believe that the God who was the 
first cause of creation, and knew everything, inspired 
man, in the childhood of the world, with a fabulous and 
inaccurate theory of the origin of man and the earth, and 
that since that day the same God has gradually changed 
or added to the inspiration, until He inspired Laplace, 
and Galileo, and Copernicus, and Darwin to contradict 
the teachings of the previous fifty thousand years. He 
asks us to believe that God muddled men’s minds with a 
mysterious series of revelations cloaked in fable and alle- 
gory; that He allowed them to stumble and to blunder, 
and to quarrel over these “ revelations ”; that He allowed 
them to persecute, and slay, and torture each other on 
account of divergent readings of His “ revelations” for 
ages and ages; and that He is still looking on while a 
number of bewildered and antagonistic religions fight 
each other to achieve the survival of the fittest. Is that 
a reasonable theory? Is it the kind of theory a reason- 


48 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


able man can accept? Is it consonant with common 
sense. 

Contrast that with our theory. We say that early man, 
having no knowledge of science, and more imagination 
than reason, would be alarmed and puzzled by the phe- 
nomena of nature. He would be afraid of the dark, he 
would be afraid of the thunder, he would wonder at the 
moon, at the stars, at fire, at the ocean. He would fear 
what he did not understand, and he would bow down and 
pay homage to what he feared. 

Then, by degrees, he would personify the stars, and the 
sun, and the thunder, and the fire. He would make gods 
of these things. He would make gods of the dead. He 
would make gods of heroes. And he would do what all 
savage races do, what all children do: he would make 
legends, or fables, or fairy tales, out of his hopes, his 
fears, and his guesses. 

Does not that sound reasonable? Does not history 
teach us that it is true? Do we not know that religion 
was so born and nursed? 

There is no such thing known to men as an original 
religion. All religions are made up of the fables and 
the imaginations of tribes long since extinct. Religion 
is an evolution, not a revelation. It has been invented, 
altered, and built up, and pulled down, and reconstructed, 
time after time. It is a conglomeration and an adapta- 
tion, as language is. And the Christian religion is no 
more an orignal religion than English is an original 
tongue. We have Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, French, Saxon, 
Norman words in our language; and we have Aryan, 
Semitic, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, and all manner of 
ancient foreign fables, myths, and rites in our Christian 
religion. 

We say that Genesis was a poetic presentation of a 


IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? 49 


fabulous story pieced together from many traditions of 
many tribes, and recording with great literary power the 
ideas of a people whose scientific knowledge was very 
incomplete. 

Now, I ask you which of these theories is the most 
reasonable; which is the most scientific; which agrees 
most closely with the facts of philology and of history of 
which we are in possession? 

Why twist the self-evident fact that the Bible story of 
creation was the work of unscientific men of strong imag- 
ination, into a far-fetched and unsatisfactory puzzle of 
symbol and allegory? It would be just as easy and just 
as reasonable to take the Morte d’ Arthur and try to prove 
that it contained a veiled revelation of God’s relations to 
man. 

And let me ask one or two questions as to this matter 
of the revelation of the Holy Bible. Is God all-power- 
ful, or is He not? If He is all-powerful, why did He 
make man so imperfect? Could He not have created 
him at once a wise and good creature? Even when man 
was ignorant and savage, could not an all-powerful God 
have devised some means of revealing Himself so as to be 
understood? If God really wished to reveal Himself to 
man, why did He reveal Himself only to one or two ob- 
scure tribes, and leave the rest of mankind in darkness? 

Those poor savages were full of credulity, full of ter- 
ror, full of wonder, full of the desire to worship. They 
worshiped the sun and the moon; they worshiped 
ghosts and demons; they worshiped tyrants, and pre- 
tenders, and heroes, dead and alive. Do you believe that 
if God had come down on earth, with a cohort of shining 
angels, and had said, “ Behold, I am the only God,” these 
savages would not have left all baser gods, and wor- 
shiped Him? Why, these men, and all the thousands 


50 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


of generations of their children, have been looking for 
God since first they learned to look at sea and sky. They 
are looking for Him now. They have fought countless 
bloody wars, and have committed countless horrible 
atrocities in their zeal for Him. And you ask us to be- 
lieve that His grand revelation of Himself is bound up 
in a volume of fables and errors collected thousands of 
years ago by superstitious priests and prophets of Pales- 
tine, and Egypt, and Assyria. 

We cannot believe such a statement. No man can be- 
lieve it who tests it by his reason in the same way in 
which he would test any modern problem. If the leaders 
of religion brought the same vigor and subtlety of mind 
to bear upon religion which they bring to bear upon any 
criticism of religion, if they weighed the Bible as they 
have weighed astronomy and evolution, the Christian re- 
ligion would not last a year. 

If my reader has not studied this matter, let him read 
the books I have recommended, and then sit down and 
consider the Bible revelation and story with the same 
fearless honesty and clear common sense with which he 
would consider the Bibles of the Mohammedan, or Bud- 
dhist, or Hindoo, and then ask himself the question: “Is 
the Bible a holy and inspired book, and the word of God 
to man, or is it an incongruous and contradictory collec- 
tion of tribal traditions and ancient fables, written by 
men of genius and imagination?” 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE 


WE now reach the second stage in our examination, 
which is the claim that no religion known to man can be 
truly said to be original. All religions, the Christian re- 
ligion included, are adaptations or variants of older re- 
ligions. Religions are not revealed: they are evolved. 

If a religion were revealed by God, that religion would 
be perfect in whole and in part, and would be as perfect 
at the first moment of its revelation as after ten thou- 
sand years of practice. There has never been a religion 
which fulfills those conditions. 

According to Bible chronology, Adam was created some 
six thousand years ago. Science teaches that man existed 
during the glacial epoch, which was at least fifty thou- 
sand years before the Christian era. 

Here I recommend the study of Laing’s Human 
Origins, Parsons’ Our Sun God, Sayce’s Ancient Empires 
of the East, and Frazer’s Golden Bough. 

In his visitation charge at Blackburn, in July, 1889, the 
Bishop of Manchester spoke as follows: 

Now, if these dates are accepted, to what age of the world 
shall we assign that Accadian civilization and literature which so 
long preceded Sargo I and the statutes of Sirgullah? I can 
best answer you in the words of the great Assyriologist, F. 
Hommel: “If,” he says, “the Semites were already settled in 
Northern Babylonia (Accad) in the beginning of the fourth 
thousand B.C., in possession of the fully developed Shumiro- 
Accadian culture adopted by them —a culture, moreover, which 
appears to have sprouted like a cutting from Shumir, then the 
latter must be far, far older still, and have existed in its com- 
pleted form in the fifth thousand B.C., an age to which I un- 
hesitatingly ascribe the South Babylonian incantations.” 


Who does not see that such facts as these compel us to remodel 
our whole idea of the past? 
5I 


52 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


A culture which was complete one thousand years be- 
fore Adam must have needed many thousands of years 
to develop. It would be a modest guess that Accadian 
culture implied a growth of at least ten thousand years. 

Of course, it may be said that the above biblical error 
is only an error of time, and has no bearing on the al- 
leged evolution of the Bible. Well, an error of a million, 
or of ten thousand, years is a serious thing in a divine 
revelation ; but, as we shall see, it has a bearing on evo- 
lution. Because it appears that in that ancient Accadian 
civilization lie the seeds of many Bible laws and legends. 

Here I quote from Our Sun God, by Mr. J. D. Par- 
sons! : 


To commence with, it is well known to those acquainted with 
the remains of the Assyrian and Babylonian civilizations, that 
the stories of the creation, the temptation, the fall, the deluge, 
and the confusion of tongues, were the common property of the 
Babylonians centuries before the date of the alleged Exodus 
under Moses. . . . Even the word Sabbath is Babylonian. 
And the observance of the seventh day as a Sabbath, or day of 
rest, by the Accadians thousands of years before Moses, or 
Israel, or even Abraham, or Adam himself could have been born 
or created, is admitted by, among others, the Bishop of Man- 
chester. For in an address to his clergy, already mentioned, he 
let fall these pregnant words: 

“Who does not see that such facts as these compel us to 
remodel our whole idea of the past, and that in particular to 
affirm that the Sabbatical institution originated in the time of 
Moses, three thousand five hundred years after it is probable 
that it existed in Chaldza, is an impossibility, no matter how 
many Fathers of the Church have asserted it. Facts cannot be 
dismissed like theories.” 


The Sabbath, then, is one link in the evolution of the 
Bible. Like the legends of the Creation, the Fall, and the 
Flood, it was adopted by the Jews from the Babylonians 
during or after the Captivity. 

Of the Flood, Professor Sayce, in his Ancient Empires 
of the East, speaks as follows: 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE 53 


With the Deluge the mythical history of Babylonia takes a 
new departure. From this event to the Persian conquest was a 
period of 36,000 years, or an astronomical cycle called saros. 
Xisuthros, with his family and friends, alone survived the waters 
which drowned the rest of mankind on account of their sins. 
He had been ordered by the gods to build a ship, to pitch it 
within and without, and to stock it with animals of every species. 
Xisuthros sent out first a dove, then a swallow, and lastly a 
raven, to discover whether the earth was dry; the dove and 
the swallow returned to the ship, and it was only when the 
raven flew away that the rescued hero ventured to leave his 
ark. He found that he had been stranded on the peak of the 
mountain of Nizir, “the mountain of the world,’ whereon the 
Accadians believed the heavens to rest — where, too, they placed 
the habitations of their gods, and the cradle of their own race. 
Since Nizir lay amongst the mountains of Pir Mam, a little 
south of Rowandiz, its mountain must be identified with Row- 
andiz itself. On its peak Xisuthros offered sacrifices, piling 
up cups of wine by sevens; and the rainbow, “the glory of Anu,” 
appeared in the heaven, in covenant that the world should never 
again be destroyed by flood. Immediately afterwards Xisuthros 
and his wife, like the biblical Enoch, were translated to the 
regions of the blest beyond Datilla, the river of Death, and his 
people made their way westwarc to Sippara. Here they disin- 
terred the books buried by their late ruler before the Deluge 
took place, and re-established themselves in their old country 
under the government first of Erékhoos, and then of his son 
Khoniasbolos. Meanwhile, other colonists had arrived in the 
plain of Sumer, and here, under the leadership of the giant 
Etana, called Titan by the Greek writers, they built a city of 
brick, and essayed to erect a tower by means of which they 
might scale the sky, and so win for themselves the immortality 
granted to Xisuthros. . . . But the tower was overthrown in 
the night by the winds, and Bel frustrated their purpose by con- 
founding their language, and scattering them on the mound. 


These legends of the Flood and the Tower of Babel 
were obviously borrowed by the Jews during.their Baby- 
lonian captivity. 

Professor Sayce, in his Ancient Empires of the East, 
speaking of the Accadian king, Sargon I., says: 


Legends naturally gathered round the name of this Baby- 
lonian Solomon. Not only was he entitled “the deviser of law, 
the deviser of prosperity,” but it was told of him how his father 
had died while he was still unborn, how his mother had fled 
to the mountains, and there left him, like a second Moses, to 
the care of the river in an ark of reeds and bitumen; and how 
he was saved by Accir, “the water-drawer,’ who brought him 


54 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


up as his own son, until the time came when, under the pro- 
tection of Istar, his rank was discovered, and he took his seat 
on the throne of his forefathers. 


From Babylon the Jews borrowed the legends of Eden, 
of the Fall, the Flood, the Tower of Babel; from Babylon 
they borrowed the Sabbath, and very likely the Com- 
mandments; and is it,not possible that the legendary 
Moses and the legendary Sargon may be variants of a 
still more ancient mythical figure? 

Compare Sayce with the following “ Notes on the 
Moses Myth,” from Christianity and Mythology, by J. M. 
Robertson : 


NOTES ON THE Moses MytTH 


I have been challenged for saying that the story of Moses and 
the floating basket is a variant of the myth of Horos and the 
floating island (Herod. ii. 156). But this seems sufficiently 
proved by the fact that in the reign of Rameses II, according 
to the monuments, there was a place in Middle Egypt which 
bore the name I-en-Moshé, “ the island of Moses’’ That is the 
primary meaning. Brugsch, who proclaims the fact (Egypt 
under the Pharaohs, ii, 117), suggests that it can also mean 
“the river bank of Moses.” It is very obvious, however, that 
the Egyptians would not have named a place by a real incident 
in the life of a successful enemy, as Moses is represented in 
Exodus. Name and story are alike mythological and pre-He- 
braic, though possibly Semitic. The Assyrian myth of Sar- 
gon, which is, indeed, very close to the Hebrew, may be the 
oldest form of all; but the very fact that the Hebrews located 
their story in Egypt shows that they knew it to have a home 
there in some fashion. The name Moses, whether it mean “the 
water-child ” (so Deutsch) or “the hero” (Sayce, Hib. Lect. p. 
46), was in all likelihood an epithet of Horos. The basket, in 
the latter form, was doubtless an adaptation from the ritual 
of the basket-born God-Child, as was the birth story of Jesus. 
In Diodorus Siculus (i. 25) the myth runs that Isis found Horos 
dead “on the water,” and brought him to life again; but even 
in that form the clue to the Moses birth-myth is obvious. And 
there are yet other Egyptian connections for the Moses saga, 
since the Egyptians had a myth of Thoth (their Logos) having 
slain Argus (as did Hermes), and having had to fly for it to 
Egypt, where he gave laws and learning to the Egyptians. Yet, 
curiously enough, this myth probably means that the Sun-God, 
who has in the other story escaped the “massacre of the inno- 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE 55 


cents.” (the morning stars), now plays the slayer on his own 
account, since the slaying of many-eyed Argus probably means 
the extinction of the stars by the morning sun (cp. Eméric-David, 
Introduction, end). Another “ Hermes” was son of Nilus, and 
his name was sacred (Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iti, 22, cp. 16). 
The story of the floating child, finally, becomes part of the lore 
of Greece. In the myth of Apollo, the Babe-God and his sister 
Artemis are secured in float-islands. 


It is impossible to form a just estimate of the Bible 
without some knowledge of ancient history and compara- 
tive mythology. It would be impossible for me to go 
deeply into these matters in this small book, but I will 
quote a few significant passages, just to show the value 
of such historical evidence. Here, to begin with, are 
some passages from Mr. Grant Allen’s Evolution of the 
Idea of God: 


THE ORIGIN OF GODS 


Mr. Herbert Spencer has traced so admirably, in his Principles 
of Sociology, the progress of development from the Ghost to the 
God that I do not propose in this chapter to attempt much more 
than a brief recapitulation of his main propositions, which, how- 
ever, I shall supplement with fresh examples, and adapt at the 
same time to the conception of three successive stages in human 
ideas about the Life of the Dead, as set forth in the preceding 
argument. 

In the earliest stage of all—the stage where the actual 
bodies of the dead are preserved —Gods as such are for the 
most part unknown: it is the corpses of friends and ancestors 
that are worshiped and reverenced. For example, Ellis says of 
the corpse of a Tahitian chief, that it was placed in a sitting 
posture under a protecting shed; “a small altar was erected be- 
fore it, and offerings of fruit, food, and flowers were daily pre- 
sented by the relatives, or the priest appointed to attend the 
body.” (This point about the priest is of essential importance.) 
The Central Americans, again, as Mr. Spencer notes, performed 
similar rites before bodies dried by artificial heat. The New 
Guinea people, as D’Albertis found, worship the dried mum- 
mies of their fathers and husbands. A little higher in the 
scale, we get, the developed mummy-worship of Egypt and Peru, 
which survives even after the evolution of greater gods, from 
powerful kings or chieftains. Wherever the actual bodies of 
the dead are preserved, there also worship and offerings are 
paid to them. 

Often, however, as already noted, it is not the whole body, 


56 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


but the head alone, that is specially kept and worshiped. Thus 
Mr. H. O. Forbes says of the people of Buru: “The dead are 
buried in the forest in some secluded spot, marked by a merang, 
or grave-pole, over which at certain intervals the relatives place 
tobacco, cigarettes, and various offerings. When the body is de- 
composed, the son or nearest relative disinters the head, wraps 
a new cloth about it, and places it in the Matakau at the back 
of his house, or in a little hut erected for it near the grave. 
It is the representative of his forefathers, whose behests he 
holds in the greatest respect.” 

Two points are worthy of notice in this interesting account, 
as giving us an anticipatory hint of two further accessories 
whose evolution we must trace hereafter: first, the grave-stake, 
which is probably the origin of the wooden idol; the second, 
the little hut erected over the head by the side of the grave, 
which is undoubtedly one of the origins of the temple, or pray- 
ing-house. Observe, also, the ceremonial wrapping of the skull 
in cloth and its oracular functions. 

Throughout the earlier and ruder phases of human evolution 
this primitive conception of ancestors or dead relatives as the 
chief known objects of worship survives undiluted: and ancestor- 
worship remains to this day the principal religion of the Chinese 
and of several other peoples. Gods, as such, are practically 
unknown in China. Ancestor-worship, also, survives in many 
other races as one of the main cults, even after other eléments 
of later religion have been stiperimposed upon it. In Greece and 
Rome it remained to the last an important part of domestic 
ritual. But in most cases a gradual differentiation is set up in 
time between various classes of ghosts or dead persons, some 
ghosts being considered of more importance and power than 
others; and out of these last it is that gods as a rule are finally 
developed. A god, in fact, is in the beginning, at least, an ex- 
ceptionally powerful and friendly ghost—a ghost able to help, 
and from whose help great things may reasonably be expected. 

Again, the rise of chieftainship and kingship has much to do 
with the growth of a higher conception of godhead; a dead 
king of any great power or authority is sure to be thought of 
in time as a god of considerable importance. We shall trace 
out this idea more fully hereafter in the religion of Egypt; for 
the present it must suffice to say that the supposed power of the 
gods in each pantheon has regularly increased in proportion 
to the increased power of kings or emperors. 

When we pass from the first plane of corpse preservation and 
mummification to the second plane, where burial is habitual, 
it might seem, at a hasty glance, as though continued worship 
of the dead, and their elevation into gods, would no longer be 
possible. For we saw that burial is prompted by a deadly fear 
lest the corpse or ghost should return to plague the living. 
Nevertheless, natural affection for parents or friends, and the 
desire to insure their goodwill and aid, make these seemingly 
contrary ideas reconcilable. As a matter of fact, we find that 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE 57 


even when men bury or burn their dead, they continue to wor- 
ship them; while, as we shall show in the sequel, even the great 
stones which they roll on top of the grave to prevent the dead 
from rising again become, in time, altars on which sacrifices are 
offered to the spirit. 


Much of the Bible is evidently legendary. Here we 
have a jumble of ancient myths, allegories, and mysteries 
drawn from many sources and remote ages, and adapted, 
altered, and edited so many times that in many instances 
their original or inner meaning has become obscure. And 
it is folly to accept the tangled legends and blurred or 
distorted symbols as the literal history of a literal tribe, 
and the literal account of the origin of man, and the 
genesis of religion. 

The real roots of religion lie far deeper: deeper, per- 
haps, than sun-worship, ghost-worship, and fear of 
demons. In The Real Origin of Religion occurs the fol- 
lowing : 

Quite recently theories have been advocated attempting to 
prove that the minds of early men were chiefly concerned with 
the increase of vegetation, and that their fancy played so much 
round the mysteries of plant growth that they made them their 
holiest arcana. Hence it appears that the savages were far 
more modest and refined than our civilized contemporaries, 
for almost all our works of imagination, both in literature and 
art, make human love their theme in all its aspects, whether 
healthy or pathological; whereas the savage, it seems, thought 
only of his crops. Nothing can be more astonishing than this 
discovery, if it be true, but there are many facts which might 


lead us to believe that the romance of love inspired early art 
and religion as well as modern thought. 


And again: 


Religion is a gorgeous efflorescence of human love. The 
tender passion has left its footsteps on the sands of time in 
magnificent monuments and libraries of theology. 

This may seem startling to many orthodox readers, but 
it is no new theory, and is doubtless quite true, for all 
gods have been made by man, and all theologies have 


58 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


been evolved by man, and the odor and the color of his 
human passions cling to them always, even after they are 
discarded. Under all man’s dreams of eternal gods and 
eternal heavens lies man’s passion for the eternal femi- 
nine. But on these subjects “ Moses” spoke in parables, 
and I shall not speak at all. 


Mr. Robertson, in Christianity and Mythology, says of 
the Bible: 


It is a medley of early metaphysics and early fable — early, 
that is, relatively to known Hebrew history. It ties together 
two creation stories and two flood stories; it duplicates several 
sets of mythic personages—as Cain and Abel, Tubal-Cain and 
Jabal; it grafts the curse of Cham on the curse of Cain, making 
that finally the curse of Canaan; it tells the same offensive story 
twice of one patriarch, and again of another; it gives an early 
“metaphysical” theory of the origin of death, life, and evil; it 
adapts the Egyptian story of the “Two Brothers,” or the myth 
of Adonis, as the history of Joseph; it makes use of various 
God-names, pretending that they always stood for the same deity ; 
it repeats traditions concerning mythic founders of races — if all 
this be not “a medley of early fable,’ what is it? 


I quote next from The Bible and the Child, in which 
Dean Farrar says: 


Some of the books of Scripture are separated from others by 
the interspace of a thousand years. They represent the frag- 
mentary survival of Hebrew literature. They stand on very dif- 
ferent levels of value, and even of morality. Read for centuries 
in an otiose, perfunctory, slavish, and superstitious manner, they 
have often been so egregiously misunderstood that many entire 
systems of interpretation — which were believed in for genera- 
tions, and which fill many folios, now consigned to a happy 
oblivion — are clearly proved to have been utterly baseless. Co- 
lossal usurpations of deadly import to the human race have been 
built, like inverted pyramids, on the narrow apex of a single mis- 
interpreted text. 


Compare those utterances of the freethinker and the 
divine, and then read the following words of Dean Far- 
rar: 

The manner in which the Higher Criticism has slowly and 


surely made its victorious progress, in spite of the most de- 
termined and exacerbated opposition, is a strong argument in its 


THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE 59 


favor. It is exactly analogous to the way in which the truths 
of astronomy and of geology have triumphed over universal op- 
position. They were once anathematized as “infidel”; they are 
now accepted as axiomatic. I cannot name a single student or 
professor of any eminence in Great Britain who does not ac- 
cept, with more or less modification, the main conclusions of the 
German school of critics. 


This being the case, I ask, as a mere layman, what right 
has the Bible to usurp the title of “the word of God”? 
What evidence can be sharked up to show that it is any 
more a holy or an inspired book than any book of Thomas 
Carlyle’s, or John Ruskin’s, or William Morris’? What 
evidence is forthcoming that the Bible is true? 


THE UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO ANCIENT RE- 
LIGION AND MODERN SCIENCE 


THE theory of the early Christian Church was that the 
Earth was flat, like a plate, and the sky was a solid dome 
above it, like an inverted blue basin. 

The Sun revolved round the Earth to give light by day, 
the Moon revolved round the Earth to give light by night. 
The stars were auxiliary lights, and had all been specially, 
and at the same time, created for the good of man. 

God created the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Earth in six 
days. He created them by word, and He created them 
out of nothing. 

The center of the Universe was the Earth. The Sun 
was made to give light to the Earth by day, and the Moon 
to give light to Earth by night. 

Any man who denied that theory in those days was in 
danger of being murdered as an Infidel. 

To-day our ideas are very different. Hardly any edu- 
cated man or woman in the world believes that the world 
is flat, or that the Sun revolves round the Earth, or that 
what we call the sky is a solid substance, like a domed 
ceiling. 

Advanced thinkers, even amongst the Christians, be- 
lieve that the world is round, that it is one of a series of 
planets revolving round the Sun, that the Sun is only 
one of many millions of other suns, that these suns were 
not created simultaneously, but at different periods, prob- 
ably separated by millions or billions of years. 

60 


ANCIENT RELIGION 61 


We have all, Christians and Infidels alike, been obliged 
to acknowledge that the Earth is not the center of the 
whole Universe, but only a minor planet revolving around 
and dependent upon, one of myriads of suns. 

God, called by Christians “ Our Heavenly Father,” cre- 
ated all things. He created not only the world, but the 
whole universe. He is all-wise, He is all-powerful, He 
is all-loving, and He is revealed to us in the Scriptures. 

Let us see. Let us try to imagine what kind of a God 
the creator of this Universe would be, and let us com- 
pare him with the God, or Gods, revealed to us in the 
Bible, and in the teachings of the Church. 

We have seen the account of the Universe and its crea- 
tion, as given in the revealed Scriptures. Let us now 
take a hasty view of the Universe and its creation as re- 
vealed to us by science. 

What is the Universe like, as far as our limited knowl- 
edge goes? 

Our Sun is only one sun amongst many millions. Our 
planet is only one of eight which revolve around him. 

Our Sun, with his planets and comets, comprises what 
is known as the solar system. 

There is no reason to suppose that this is the only Solar 
System: there may be many millions of solar systems. 
For aught we know, there may be millions of systems, 
each containing millions of solar systems. 

Let us deal first with the solar system of which we are 
a part. 

The Sun is a globe of 866,200 miles diameter. His 
diameter is more than 108 times that of the Earth. His 
volume is 1,305,000 times the volume of the Earth. All 
the eight planets added together only make one-seven- 
hundredth part of his weight. His circumference is more 
than two and a half millions of miles. He revolves upon 


62 GOD. AND MY NEIGHBOR 


his axis in 2514 days, or at a speed of nearly 4000 miles 
an hour. 

This immense and magnificent globe diffuses heat and 
light to all the other planets. 

Without the light and heat of the Sun. no life would 
now be, or in the past have been, possible on this Earth, 
or any other planet of the solar system. 

The eight planets of the solar system are divided into 
four inferior and four superior. 

The inferior planets are Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and 
Mars. The superior are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and 
Neptune. 

The diameters of the smaller planets are as follow: 
Mercury, 3008 miles; Mars, 5000 miles; Venus, 7480 
miles ; the Earth, 7926 miles. 

The diameters of the large planets are: Jupiter, 88,439 
miles; Saturn, 75,036 miles; Neptune, 37,205 miles ; 
Uranus, 30,875 miles. 

The volume of Jupiter is 1389 times, of Saturn 848 
times, of Neptune 103 times, and of Uranus 59 times the 
volume of the Earth. 

The mean distances from the Sun are: Mercury, 36 
million miles; Venus, 67 million miles; the Earth, 93 
million miles: Mars, 141 million miles; Jupiter, 483 mil- 
lion miles; Saturn, 886 million miles; Uranus, 1782 mil- 
lion miles; Neptune, 2792 million miles. 

To give an idea of the meaning of these distances, I 
may say that a train traveling night and day at 60 miles 
an hour would take quite 176 years to come from the Sun 
to the Earth. 

The same train, at the same speed, would be 5280 years 
in traveling from the Sun to Neptune. 

Reckoning that Neptune is the outermost planet of the 


ANCIENT RELIGION 63 


solar system, that system would have a diameter of 5584 
millions of miles. 

If we made a chart of the solar system on a scale of 
I inch to a million miles, we should need a sheet of paper 
465 feet 4 inches wide. On this sheet the Sun would 
have a diameter of less than 1 inch, and the Earth would 
be about the size of a pin-prick. 

If an express train, going at 60 miles an hour, had to 
travel round the Earth’s orbit, it would be more than 
1000 years on the journey. If the Earth moved no fas- 
ter, our winter would last more than 250 years. But in 
the solar system the speeds are as wonderful as the sizes. 
The Earth turns upon its axis at the rate of 1000 miles 
an hour, and travels in its orbit round the Sun at the 
rate of more than 1000 miles a minute, or 66,000 miles an 
hour. 

So much for the size of the solar system. It consists 
of a Sun and eight planets, and the outer planet’s orbit is 
one of 5584 millions of miles in diameter, which it would 
take an express train, at 60 miles an hour, 10,560 years 
to cross. 

But this distance is as nothing when we come to deal 
with the distances of the other stars from our Sun. 

The distance from our Sun to the nearest fixed (?) 
star is more than 20 millions of millions of miles. Our 
express train, which crosses the diameter of the solar sys- 
tem in 10,560 years, would take, if it went 60 miles an 
hour day and night, about 4o million years to reach the 
nearest fixed star from the Sun. 

And if we had to mark the nearest fixed star on our 
chart made on a scale of 1 inch to the million miles, we 
should find that whereas a sheet of 465 feet would take in 
the outermost planet of the solar system, a sheet to take in 


64 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the nearest fixed star would have to be about 620 miles’ 
wide. On this sheet, as wide as from London to In- 
verness, the Sun would be represented by a dot three- 
quarters of an inch in diameter, and the Earth by a pin- 
prick. 

But these immense distances only relate to the nearest 
stars. Now, the nearest stars are about four “light 
years’ distant from us. That is to say, that light, trav- 
eling at a rate of about 182,000 miles in one second, 
takes four years to come from the nearest fixed star to 
the Earth. 

But I have seen the distance from the Earth to the 
Great Nebula in Orion given as a thousand light years, 
or 250 times the distance of the fixed star above al- 
luded to. 

To reach that nebula at 60 miles an hour, an express 
train would have to travel for 35 millions of years mul- 
tiplied by 250— that is to say, for 8750 million years. 

And yet there are millions of stars whose distances are 
even greater than the distance of the Great Nebula in 
Orion. 

How many stars are there? No one can even guess. 
But L. Struve estimates the number of those visible to the 
great telescopes at 20 millions. 

Twenty millions of suns. And as for the size of these 
suns, Sir Robert Ball says Sirius is ten times as large as 
our Sun; and a well-known astronomer, writing in the 
English Mechanic about a week ago, remarks that Alpha 
Orionis (Betelgenze) has probably 700 times the light of 
our Sun. ( 

Looking through my telescope, which is only 3-inch 
aperture, I have seen star clusters of wonderful beauty 
in the Pleiades and in Cancer. There is, in the latter 
constellation, a dim star which, when viewed through my 


ANCIENT RELIGION 65 


glass, becomes a constellation larger, more brilliant, and 
more beautiful than Orion or the Great Bear. I have 
looked at these jeweled sun-clusters many a time, and 
wondered over them. But I have never once thought of 
believing that they were specially created to be lesser 
lights to the Earth. 

And now let me quote from that grand book of Richard 
A. Proctor’s, The Expanse of Heaven, a fine passage de- 
scriptive of some of the wonders of the “ Milky Way”: 

There are stars in all orders of brightness, from 

those which (seen with the telescope) resemble in lus- 
ter the leading glories of the firmament, down to tiny 
points of light only caught by momentary twinklings. 
Every variety of arrangement is seen. Here the stars 
are scattered as over the skies at night; there they 
cluster in groups, as though drawn together by some 
irresistible power; in one region they seem to form 
sprays of stars like diamonds sprinkled over fern 
leaves ; elsewhere they lie in streams and rows, in coro- 
nets and loops and festoons, resembling the star fes- 
toon which, in the constellation Perseus, garlands the 
black robe of night. Nor are varieties of color wanting 
to render the display more wonderful and more beau- 
tiful. Many of the stars which crowd upon the view 
are red, orange, and yellow. Among them are groups 
of two and three and four (multiple stars as they are 
called), amongst which blue and green and lilac and 
purple stars appear, forming the most charming con- 
trast to the ruddy and yellow orbs near which they 
are commonly seen. 

Millions and millions — countless millions of suns. In- 
numerable galaxies and systems of suns, separated by 
black gulfs of space so wide that no man can realize the 
meaning of the figures which denote their stretch. Suns 


66 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


of fire and light, whirling through vast oceans of space 
like swarms of golden bees. And round them planets 
whirling at thousands of miles a minute. 

And on Earth there are forms of life so minute that 
millions of them exist in a drop of water. There are 
microscopic creatures more beautiful and more highly 
finished than any gem, and more complex and effective 
than the costliest machine of human contrivance. In 
The Story of Creation Mr. Ed. Clodd tells us that one 
cubic inch of rotten stone contains 41 thousand million 
vegetable skeletons of diatoms. 

I cut the following from a London morning paper: 

It was discovered some few years ago that a peculiar bacillus 
was present in all persons suffering from typhoid, and in all 
foods and drinks which spread the disease. Experiments were 
carried out, and it was assumed, not without good reason, that 
the bacillus was the primary cause of the malady, and it was ac- 
cordingly labeled the typhoid bacillus. 

But the bacteriologists further discovered that the typhoid 
bacillus was present in water which was not infectious, and in 
persons who were not ill, or had never been ill, with typhoid. 

So now a theory is propounded that a healthy typhoid bacillus 
does not cause typhoid, but that it is only when the bacillus is 
itself sick of a fever, or, in other words, is itself the prey of 
some infinitely minuter organisms, which feed on it alone, that 
it works harm to mortal men. 

The bacillus is so small that one requires a powerful 
microscope to see him, and his blood may be infested 
with bacilli as small to him as he is to us. 

And there are millions, and more likely billions, of 
suns ! 

Talk about Aladdin’s palace, Sinbad’s valley of dia- 
monds, Macbeth’s witches, or the Irish fairies! How 
petty are their exploits, how tawdry are their splendors, 
how paltry are their riches, when we compare them to 
the romance of science. 


When did a poet conceive an idea so vast and so as- 


ANCIENT RELIGION 67 


tounding as the theory of evolution? What are a few 
paltry lumps of crystallized carbon compared to a galaxy 
of a million million suns? Did any Eastern inventor of 
marvels ever suggest such a human feat as that accom- 
plished by the men who have, during the last handful of 
centuries, spelt out the mystery of the universe? These 
scientists have worked miracles before which those of the 
ancient priests and magicians are mere tricks of hanky- 
panky. © 

Look at the romance of geology; at the romance of 
astronomy ; at the romance of chemistry; at the romance 
of the telescope, and the microscope, and the prism. 
More wonderful than all, consider the story of how flying 
atoms in space became suns, how suns made planets, 
how planets changed from spheres of flame and raging 
fiery storm to worlds of land and water. How in the 
water specks of jelly became fishes, fishes reptiles, reptiles 
mammals, mammals monkeys, monkeys men; until, from 
the fanged and taloned cannibal, roosting in a forest, 
have developed art and music, religion and science; and 
the children of the jellyfish can weigh the suns, measure 
the stellar spaces, ride on the ocean or in the air, and 
speak to each other from continent to continent. 

Talk about fairy tales! what is this? You may look 
through a telescope, and see the nebula that is to make 
a sun floating, like a luminous mist, three hundred million 
miles away. You may look again, and see another sun 
in process of formation. You may look again, and see 
others almost completed. You may look again and 
again, and see millions of suns and systems spread out 
across the heavens like rivers of living gems. 

You will say that all this speaks of a Creator. I shall 
not contradict you. But what kind of Creator must He 
be who has created such a universe as this? 


68 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Do you think He is the kind of Creator to make 
blunders and commit crimes? Can you, after once think- 
ing of the Milky Way, with its rivers of suns, and the 
drop of water teeming with spangled dragons, and the 
awful abysses of dark space, through which comets 
shoot at a speed a thousand times as fast as an express 
train—can you, after seeing Saturn’s rings, and Jupi- 
ter’s moons, and the clustered gems of Hercules, consent 
for a moment to the allegation that the creator of all 
this power and glory got angry with men, and threatened 
them with scabs and sores, and plagues of lice and frogs? 
Can you suppose that such a creator would, after thou- 
sands of years of effort, have failed even now to make 
‘His repeated revelations comprehensible? Do you be- 
lieve that He would be driven across the unimaginable 
gulfs of space, out of the transcendent glory of His 
myriad resplendent suns, to die on a cross, in order to 
win back to Him the love of the puny creatures on one 
puny planet in the marvelous universe His power had 
made? 

Do you believe that the God who imagined and created 
such a universe could be petty, base, cruel, revengeful, 
and capable of error? I do not believe it. 

And now let us examine the character and conduct of 
this God as depicted for us in the Bible—the book 
which is alleged to have been directly revealed by God 
Himself. 


JEHOVAH 


THE ADopTED HEAVENLY FATHER oF CHRISTIANITY 


In giving the above brief sketch of the known universe 
my object was to suggest that the Creator of a universe 
of such scope and grandeur must be a Being of vast 
power and the loftiest dignity. 

Now, the Christians claim that their God created this 
universe — not the universe He is described, in His own 
inspired word, as creating, but the universe revealed by 
science ; the universe of twenty millions of suns. 

And the Christians claim that this God is a God of 
love, a God omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal, 

And the Christians claim that this great God, the 
Creator of our wonderful universe, is the God revealed 
to us in the Bible. 

Let us, then, go to the Bible, and find out for our- 
selves whether the God therein revealed is any more like 
the ideal Christian God, than the universe therein re- 
vealed is like the universe since discovered by man with- 
out the aid of divine inspiration. 

As for the biblical God, Jahweh, or Jehovah, I shall 
try to show from the Bible itself that He was not all- 
wise, nor all-powerful nor omnipresent: that He was 
not merciful nor just; but that, on the contrary, He 
was fickle, jealous, dishonorable, immoral, vindictive, 
barbarous, and cruel. 

Neither was He, in any sense of the words, great nor 
good. But, in fact, He was a tribal god, an idol, made 


69 


70 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


by man; and, as the idol of a savage and ignorant tribe, 
was Himself a savage and ignorant monster. 

First, then, as to my claim that Jahweh, or Jehovah, 
was a tribal god. I shall begin by quoting from Shall 
We Understand the Bible? by the Rev. T. Rhondda 
Williams: 


The theology of the Jahwist is very childish and elementary, 
though it is not all on the same level. He thinks of God very 
much as in human form, holding intercourse with men almost as 
one of themselves. His document begins with Genesis ii, 4, and 
its first portion continues, without break, to the end of chapter 
iv. This portion contains the story of Eden. Here Jahew 
molds dust into human form, and breathes into it; plants a 
garden, and puts the man in it. Jahweh comes to the man in 
his sleep, and takes part of his body to make a woman, and so 
skillfully, apparently, that the man never wakes under the opera- 
tion. Jahweh walks in the garden like a man in the cool of the 
day. He even makes coats for Adam and Eve. Further on the 
Jahwist has a flood story, in which Jahweh repents that he had 
made man, and decides to drown him, saving only one family. 
When all is over, and Noah sacrifices on his new altar, Jahweh 
smells a sweet savor, just as a hungry man smells welcome food. 
When men build the Tower of Babel, Jahweh comes down to 
see it—he cannot see it from where he is. In Genesis xviii 
the Jahwist tells a story of three men coming to Abraham’s tent. 
Abraham gives them water to wash their feet, and bread to eat, 
and Sarah makes cakes for them, and “they did eat”; altogether, 
they seemed to have had a nice time. As the story goes on, he 
leaves you to infer that one of these was Jahweh himself. It is 
J. who describes the story of Jacob wrestling with some mys- 
terious person, who, by inference, is Jahweh. He tells a very 
strange story in Exodus iv, 24, that when Moses was returning 


into Egypt, at Jahweh’s own request, Jahweh met him at a lodg- 


ing-place, and sought to kill him. In Exodus xiv, 15, it is said 
Jahweh took the wheels off the chariots of the Egyptians. If 
we wanted to believe that such statements were true at all, we 
should resort to the device of saying they were figurative. But 
J. meant them literally. The Jahwist would have no difficulty in 
thinking of God in this way. The story of the destruction of 
Sodom and Gomorrah belongs to this same document, in which, 
you remember, Jahweh says: “I will go down now, and see 
whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it 
which is come unto me; and if not, I will know” (Gen. xviii, 
21). That God was omniscient and omnipresent had never oc- 
curred to the Jahwist. Jahweh, like a man, had to go and see if 
he wanted to know. There is, however, some compensation in 
the fact that he can move about without difficulty —he can come 


JEHOVAH 71 


down and go up. One might say, perhaps, that in J., though 
Jahweh cannot be everywhere, he can go to almost any place. 
All this is just like a child’s thought. The child, at Christmas, 
can believe that, though Santa Claus cannot be everywhere, he 
can move about with wonderful facility, and, though he is a man, 
he is rather mysterious. The Jahwist’s thought of God repre- 
sents the childhood stage of the national life. 


Later, Mr. Williams writes: 


All this shows that at one time Jahweh was one of many 
Gods; other gods were real gods. The Israelites themselves be- 
lieved, for example, that Chemosh was as truly the god of the 
Moabites as Jahweh was theirs, and they speak of Chemosh giv- 
ing territory to his people to inherit, just as Jahweh had given 
them territory (Judg. xi. 24). 

Just as a King of Israel would speak of Jahweh, the King of 
Moab speaks of Chemosh. His god sends him to battle. If he 
is defeated, the god is angry; if he succeeds, the god is favor- 
able. And we have seen that there was a time when the Israelite 
believed Chemosh to be as real for Moab as Jahweh for him- 
self. You find the same thing everywhere. The old Assyrian 
kings said exactly the same thing of the god Assur. 

Assur sent them to battle, gave defeat or victory, as he thought 
fit. The history, however, is very obscure up to the time of 
Samuel, and uncertain for some time after. Samuel organized 
a Jahweh party. David worshiped Jahweh only, though he re- 
gards it as possible to be driven out of Jahweh’s inheritance into 
that of other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). Solomon was not ex- 
clusively devoted to Jahweh, for he built places of worship for 
other deities as well. 


In the chapter on “ Different Conceptions of Prov- 
idence in the Bible”” Mr. Williams says: 


I have asked you to read Judges iii. 15-30, iv. 17-24, v. 24-31. 
The first is the story of Ehud getting at Eglon, Israel’s enemy, 
by deceit, and killing him — an act followed by a great slaughter 
of Moabites. The second is the story of Jael pretending to play 
the friend to Sisera, and then murdering him. The third is the 
eulogy of Jael for doing so, as “blessed above women,” in the 
so-called Song of Deborah. Here, you see, Providence is only 
concerned with the fortunes of Israel; any deceit and any cruelty 
is right which brings success to this people. Providence is not 
concerned with morality; nor is it concerned with individuals, 
except as the individual serves or opposes Israel. 


In these two chapters Mr. Williams shows that the 
early conception of God was a very low one, and that 


72 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


it underwent considerable change. In fact, he says, with 
great candor and courage, that the early Bible concep- 
tion of God is one which we cannot now accept. 

With this I entirely agree. We cannot accept as the 
God of Creation this savage idol of an obscure tribe, 
and we have renounced Him, and are ashamed of Him, 
not because of any later divine revelation, but because 
mankind have become too enlightened, too humane, and 
too honorable to tolerate Jehovah. 

And yet the Christian religion adopted Jehovah, and 
called upon its followers to worship and believe Him, on 
pain of torture, or death, or excommunication in this 
world, and of hell-fire in the world to come. It is as- 
_tounding. 

But lest the evidence offered by Mr. Williams should 
not be considered sufficient, I shall quote from another 
very useful book, The Evolution of the Idea of God, 
by the late Grant Allen. In this book Mr. Allen clearly 
traces the origins of the various ideas of God, and we 
hear of Jehovah again, as a kind of tribal stone idol, 
carried about in a box or ark. I will quote as fully as 
space permits: 

But Jahweh was an object of portable size, for, omitting for 
the present the descriptions in the Pentateuch— which seem 
likely to be of later date, and not too trustworthy, through their 
strenuous Jehovistic editing — he was carried from Shiloh in his 
ark to the front during the great battle with the Philistines at 
Ebenezer; and the Philistines were afraid, for they said, “A 
god is come into the camp.” But when the Philistines captured 
the ark, the rival god, Dagon, fell down and broke in pieces — 
so Hebrew legend declared — before the face of Jahweh. After 
the Philistines restored the sacred object, it rested for a time at 
Kirjath-jearim till David, on the capture of Jerusalem from the 
Jebusites, went down to that place to bring up from thence the 
ark of the god; and as it went, on a new cart, they ‘“ played 
before Jahweh on all manner of instruments,” and David him- 
self “danced before Jahweh.” . . . The children of Israel 


in early times carried about with them a tribal god, Jahweh, 
whose presence in their midst was intimately connected with a 


JEHOVAH 73 


certain ark or chest containing a stone object or objects. This 
chest was readily portable, and could be carried to the front in 
case of warfare. They did not know the origin of the object 
in the ark with certainty; but they regarded it emphatically as 
“Jahweh their god, which led them out of the land of 


Hey ptsc ts ues, os 

T do not see, therefore, how we can easily avoid the obvious 
inference that Jahweh, the god of the Hebrews, who later be- 
came sublimated and etherealized into the God of Christianity, 
was, in his origin, nothing more nor less than the ancestral 
sacred stone of the people of Israel, however sculptured, and, 
perhaps, in the very last resort of all, the unhewn monumental 
pillar of some early Semitic sheikh or chieftain. 

It was, indeed, as the Rev. C. E. Beeby says, in his 
book Creed and Life, a sad mistake of St. Augustine to 
tack this tribal fetish in his box on to the Christian 
religion as the All-Father, and Creator of the Universe. 
For Jehovah was a savage war-god, and, as such, was 
impotent to save the tribe who worshiped him. 

But let us look further into the accounts of this orig- 
inal God of the Christians, and see how he comported 
himself, and let us put our examples under separate 


heads; thus: 


JeHOVAH’s ANGER 


Jahweh’s bad temper is constantly displayed in the 
Bible. Jahweh made a man, whom he supposed to be 
perfect. When the man turned bad on his hands, Jahweh 
was angry, and cursed him and his seed for thousands 
of years. This vindictive act is accepted by the Apostle 
Paul as a natural thing for a God of Love to do. 

Jahweh, who had already cursed all the seed of Adam, 
was so angry about man’s sin, in the time of Noah, that 
he decided to drown all the people on the earth except 
Noah’s family, and not only that, but to drown nearly 
all the innocent animals as well. 

When the children of Irsael, who had eaten nothing 


74 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


but manna for forty years, asked Jahweh for a change 
of diet, Jahweh lost his temper again, and sent amongst 
them “fiery serpents,” so that “much people of Israel 
died.” But still the desire for other food remained, 
and the Jews wept for meat. Then the Lord ordered 
Moses to speak to the people as follows: 

._. . The Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye 
shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten 
days nor twenty days; but even a whole month, until it come out 
of your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you; because that ye 
have despised the Lord, which is among you, and have wept be- 
fore Him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt? 

Then Jahwah sent immense numbers of quails, and the 
people ate them, and the anger of their angry god came 
upon them in the act, and smote them with “a very great 
plague.” 

One more instance out of many. In the First Book of 
Samuel we are told that on the return of Jahweh in his 
ark from the custody of the Philistines some men of 
Bethshemesh looked into the ark. This made Jahweh 
so angry that he smote the people, and slew more than 
fifty thousand of them. 


Tue Injustice or JEHovAH 


I have already instanced Jahweh’s injustice in cursing 
the seed of Adam for Adam’s sin, and in destroying the 
whole animal creation, except a selected few, because he 
was angry with mankind. In the Book of Samuel we are 
told that Jahweh sent three years’ famine upon the whole 
nation because of the sins of Saul, and that his wrath 
was only appeased by the hanging in cold blood of seven 
of Saul’s sons for the evil committed by their father. 

In the Book of Joshua is the story of how Achan, 
having stolen some gold, was ordered to be burnt; and 


as 


JEHOVAH 75 


how Joshua and the Israelites took ‘“ Achan, and his 
sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and 
his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had,” and stoned 
them to death, and “burnt them with fire.” 

In the First Book of Chronicles the devil persuades 
David to take a census of Israel. And again Jahweh 
acted in blind wrath and injustice, for he sent a pesti- 
lence, which slew seventy thousand of the people for 
David’s fault. But David he allowed to live. 

In Samuel we learn how Jahweh, because of an attack 
upon the Israelites*four hundred years before the time 
of speaking, ordered Saul to destroy the Amalekites, 
“man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, 
camel and ass.”’ And Saul did as he was directed; but 
because he spared King Agag, the Lord deprived him 
of the crown, and made David king in his stead. 


THE IMMORALITY OF JEHOVAH 


In the Second Book of Chronicles Jehovah gets Ahab, 
King of Israel, killed by putting lies into the mouths of 
the prophets: 


And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab, king of Israel, 
that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one spake 
saying after this manner, and another saying after that man- 
ner, 

Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and 
see will entice him. And the Lord said unto him, Where- 
with: 

And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth 
of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, 
and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so. 


In Deuteronomy are the following orders as to con- 
duct in war: 
When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the 


Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou 
hast taken them captive. 


76 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a 
desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; 

Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall 
shave her head, and pare her nails; | 

And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, 
and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her 
mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, 
and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. 

And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shall 
let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all 
for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because 
thou hast humbled her. 


The children of Israel, having been sent out by Jahweh 
to punish the Midianites, “slew all the males.” But 
Moses was wroth, because they had spared the women, 
and he ordered them to kill all the married women, and 
to take the single women “ for themselves.”’ The Lord 
allowed this brutal act — which included the murder of 
all the male children — to be consummated. There were 
sixteen thousand females spared, of which we are told 
that “the Lord’s tribute was thirty and two.” 


THE CRUELTY OF JEHOVAH 


I could find in the Bible more instances of Jahweh’s 
cruelty and barbarity and lack of mercy than I can find 
room for. 

In Deuteronomy the Lord hardens the heart of Sihon, 
King of Hesbon, to resist the Jews, and then “ utterly 
destroyed the men, women, and little ones of every city,., 

In Leviticus, Jahweh threatens that if the Israelites 
will not reform he will “ walk contrary to them in fury, 
and they shall eat the flesh of their own sons and daugh- 
ters? 

In Deuteronomy is an account of how Bashan was ut- 
terly destroyed, men, women, and children being slain. 

In the same book occur the following passages : — 


JEHOVAH : 


When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither 
thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before 
thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the 
Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, 
seven nations greater and mightier than thou; 

And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; 
thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt 
make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. 


That is from chapter vii. In chapter xx. there are 
further instructions of a like horrible kind: 


Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off 
from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. 

But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God 
doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing 
that breatheth: 

But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and 
the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and 
the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. 


And here, in a long quotation, is an example of the 
mercy of Jahweh, and his faculty for cursing: 


The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he 
have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to 
possess it. 

The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a 
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, 
and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and 
they shall pursue thee until thou perish. 

And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the 
earth that is under thee shall be iron. 

The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: 
from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be de- 
stroyed. 

The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: 
thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways be- 
pore aise: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the 
earth. 

And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and 
unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away. 

The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with 
the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou 
canst not be healed. 

The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and 
astonishment of heart: . . . 

And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and 


78 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all 
thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all 
thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. 

And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy 
sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given 
thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies 
shall distress thee: 

So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, 
his eye shall be evil towards his brother, and toward the wife 
of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he 
shall leave. nS 

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn into the 
lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and 
set on fire the foundations of the mountains. 

I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows 
upon them. 

They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning 
heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of 
beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. 

The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the 
young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray 
hairs. 


I think I have quoted enough to show that what I say 
of the Jewish God Jehovah is based on fact. But I 
could, if needful, heap proof on proof, for the books of 
the Old Testament reek with blood, and are horrible with 
atrocities. 

Now, consider, is the God of whom we have been 
reading a God of love? Is He the Father of Christ? Is 
He not rather the savage idol of a savage tribe? 

Man and his gods: what a tragi-comedy it is. Man 
has never seen one of his gods, never heard the voice of 
one of his gods, does not know the shape, expression, or 
bearing of one of his gods. Yet man has cursed man, 
hated man, hunted man, tortured man, and murdered 
man, for the sake of shadows and fantasies of his own 
terror, or vanity, or desire. We tiny, vain feeblenesses, 
we fussy ephemera ; we sting each other, hate each other, 
hiss at each other, for the sake of the monster gods of 
our own delirium. As we are whirled upon our spin- 
ning, glowing planet through the unfathomable spaces 


JEHOVAH 79 


where myriads of suns, like golden bees, gleam through 
the awful mystery of “ the vast void night,” what are the 
phantom gods to us? They are no more than the water- 
spouts on the ocean, or the fleeting shadows on the hills. 
But the man, and the woman, and the child, and the dog 
with its wistful eyes: these know us, touch us, appeal to 
us, love us, serve us, grieve us. 

Shall we kill these, or revile them, or desert them, for 
the sake of the lurid ghost in the cloud, or the fetish in 
his box? 

Do you think the bloodthirsty vindictive Jahweh, who 
prized nothing but his own aggrandizement, and slew or 
cursed all who offended him, is the Creator, the same 
who made the jewels of the Pleiades, and the resplendent 
mystery of the Milky Way? 

Is this unspeakable monster, Jahweh, the Father of 
Christ? Is he the God who inspired Buddha, and Shake- 
speare, and Herschel, and Beethoven, and Darwin, and 
Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and 
massacre, in rapine and in rape, in black revenge and 
deadly malice, in slavery, and polygamy, and the debase- 
ment of women; and in the pomps, vanities, and greeds 
of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter — 
we may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and 
abominable personality. It is time to have done with 
this nightmare fetish of a murderous tribe of savages. 
We have no use for him. We have no criminal so ruth- 
less nor so blood-guilty as he. He is not fit to touch 
our cities, imperfect as we are. The thought of him de- 
files and nauseates. We. should think him too horrible 
and pitiless for a devil, this red-handed, black-hearted 
Jehovah of the Jews. 

And yet: in the inspired Book, in the Holy Bible, this 
awful creature is still enshrined as “God the Father 


80 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Almighty.’ It is marvelous. It is beyond the compre- 
hension of any man not blinded by superstition, not 
warped by prejudice and old-time convention. This the 
God of Heaven? This the Father of Christ? This the 
Creator of the Milky Way? No. He will not do... vite 
is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not 
clean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare: a bad dream 
born in savage minds of terror and ignorance and a tiger- 
ish lust for blood. 

But if He is not the Most High, if He is not the 
Heavenly Father, if He is not the King of kings, the 
Bible is not an inspired book, and its claim to divine 
revelation will not stand. 


ON a 


THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE 


CARLYLE said we might judge a people by their heroes. 
The heroes of the Bible, like the God of the Bible, are 
immoral savages. That is because the Bible is a compila- 
tion from the literature of savage and immoral tribes. 

Had the Bible been the word of God we should have 
found in it a lofty and a pure ideal of God. We should 
not have found in it open approval — divine approval — 
of such unspeakable savages as Moses, David, Solomon, 
Jacob, and Lot. 

Let us consider the lives of a few of the Bible heroes. 
We will begin with Moses. 

We used to be taught in school that Moses was the 
meekest man the world has known: and we used to 
marvel. | 

It is written in the second chapter of Exodus thus: 

And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, 
that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their bur- 
dens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his 
brethren. 

And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that 
there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand. 

And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the 
Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, 
Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made 
thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me as 
thou killest the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely 
this thing is known. 

The meekest of men slays an Egyptian deliberately and 
in cold blood. It may be pleaded that the Egyptian was 
doing wrong; but the remarks of the Hebrew suggest 


SI 


82 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


that even the countrymen of Moses looked upon his act 
of violence with disfavor. 

But the meekness of Moses is further illustrated in the 
laws attributed to him, in which the death penalty is al- 
most as common as it was in England in the Middle 
Ages. 

Also, in the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we have 
the following story. The Lord commands Moses to 
“avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites,” after 
which Moses is to die. Moses sends out an army: 


And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord com- 
manded Moses; and they slew all the males. 

And they slew the kings of Midian, besides the rest of them 
that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and 
Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they 
slew with the sword. 

And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian 
captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their 
cattle, and all their flocks, and ’all their goods. 

And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their 
goodly castles, with fire. 

And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and 
of beasts. : 

And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the 
captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which 
came from the battle. 

ae Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women 
alive? 

Behold, these called the children of Israel, through the counsel 
of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of 
Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the 
Lord. 

Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill 
every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 

But all the women children that have not known a man by lying 
with him, keep alive for yourselves. 


Moses is a patriarch of the Jews, and the meekest man. 
But suppose any pagan or Mohammedan general were to 
behave to a Christian city as Moses behaved to the peo- 


ple of Midian, what should we say of him? But God 
was pleased with him. 


THOR RORS VOR URL ERT E 83 


Further, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers you will 
find how Moses the Meek treated Korah, Dathan, and 
Abiram for rebelling against himself and Aaron; how 
the earth opened and swallowed these men and their 
families and friends, at a hint from Moses; and how 
the Lord slew with fire from heaven two hundred and 
fifty men who were offering incense, and how afterwards 
there came a pestilence by which some fourteen thousand 
persons died. 

Moses was a politician; his brother was a priest. I 
shall express no opinion of the pair; but I quote from the 
Book of Exodus, as follows: 


And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down 
out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto 
Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go be- 
fore us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out 
of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 

And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, 
which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your 
daughters, and bring them unto me. 

And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were 
in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 

And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with 
a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they 
said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of 
the land of Egypt. 

And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron 
made proclamation, and said, To-morrow is a feast to the Lord. 

And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt of- 
ferings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down 
to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. 

And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy 
people which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have 
corrupted themselves. 


Aaron, when asked by Moses why he has done this 
thing, tells a lie: 


And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, 
that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? 

And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot; thou 
knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. 
' For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before 


84 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the 
land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. 

And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them 
break it off. So they gave it to me: then I cast it into the fire, 
and there came out this calf. 


And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron 
had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies :) 

Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on 
the Lord’s side? let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi 
gathered themselves together unto him. 

And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, 
Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from 
gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, 
and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. 

And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses; 
and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. 

So much for this meek father of the Jews. 

And now let us consider David and his son Solomon, 
the greatest of the Bible kings, and the ancestors of Jesus 
Christ. 

Judging King David by the Bible record, I should con- 
clude that he was a cruel, treacherous, and licentious 
savage. He lived for some time as a bandit, robbing the 
subjects of the King of Gath, who had given him shel- 
ter. When asked about this by the king, David lied. As 
to the nature of his conduct at this time, no room is left 
for doubt by the story of Nabal. David demanded black- 
mail of Nabal, and, on its being refused, set out with 
four hundred armed men to rob Nabal, and kill every 
male on his estate. This he was prevented from doing 
by Nabal’s wife, who came out to meet David with fine 
presents and fine words. Ten days later Nabal died, and 
David married his widow. See twenty-fifth chapter 
First Book of Samuel. 

David had seven wives, and many children. One of his 
favorite wives was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah. 

While Uriah was at “the front,” fighting for David, 
that king seduced his wife, Bathsheba. To avoid dis- 


covery, David recalled Uriah from the war, and bade 


Sat Oe a Sa en 


THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE 85 


him go home to his wife. Uriah said it would dishonor 
him to seek ease and pleasure at home while other sol- 
diers were enduring hardship at the front. The king 
then made the soldier drunk, but even so could not pre- 
vail, 

Therefore David sent word to the general to place 
Uriah in the front of the battle, where the fight was hard- 
est. And Uriah was killed, and David married Bath- 
sheba, who became the mother of Solomon. 

So much for David’s honor. Now for a sample of his 
humanity. I quote from the twelfth chapter of the Sec- 
ond Book of Samuel: 


And Joab sent messengers to David, and said, I have fought 
against Rabbah, and have taken the city of waters. 

Now therefore gather the rest of the people together, and en- 
camp against the city, and take it: lest I take the city, and it be 
called after my name. 

And David gathered all the people together, and went to Rab- 
bah, and fought against it, and took it. 

And he took their king’s crown from off his head, the weight 
whereof was a talent of gold with the precious stones: and it 
was set on David’s head. And he brought forth the spoil of 
the city in great abundance. 

And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put 
them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes 
of iron, and made them pass through the brick-kiln: and thus 
did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David 
and all the people returned unto Jerusalem. 


But nothing in David’s life became him so little as his 
leaving of it. I quote from the second chapter of the 
First Book of Kings. David, on his deathbed, is speak- 
ing to Solomon, his son: 


Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah 
did to me, and what he did to the two captains of the hosts 
of Israel, unto Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son 
of Jether, whom he slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, 
and put the blood of war upon his girdle that was about his 
loins, and in his shoes that were on his feet. 

Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his how 
head go down to the grave in peace. 


86 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


But show kindness unto the sons of Barzillai, the Gileadite, and 
let them be of those that eat at thy table: for so they came to 
me when I fled because of Absalom thy brother. 

And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a 
Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse 
in the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to 
meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, 1 
will not put thee to death with the sword. 

Now therefore hold him not guiltless: for thou art a wise 
man, and knowest what thou oughtest to do unto him; but his 
hoar head bring thou down ‘o the grave with blood. 


These seem to have been the last words spoken by 
King David. Joab was his best general, and had many 
times saved David’s throne. 

Solomon began by stealing the throne from his brother, 
the true heir. Then he murders the brother he has 
robbed, and disgraces and exiles a priest, who had been 
long a faithful friend to David, his father. Later, he 
murders Joab at the altar, and brings down the hoar head 
of Shimei to the grave with blood. 

After which he gets him much wisdom, builds a tem- 
ple, and marries many wives. 

Much glamor has been cast upon the names of Solo- 
mon and David by their alleged writings. But it is now 
acknowledged that David wrote few, if any, of the 
Psalms, and that Solomon wrote neither Ecclesiastes nor 
the Song of Songs, though some of the Proverbs may 
be his. } 

It seems strange to me that such men as Moses, 
David, and Solomon should be glorified by Christian men 
and women who execrate Henry VIII. and Richard III. 
as monsters. 

My pet aversion amongst the Bible heroes is Jacob; but 
Abraham and Lot were pitiful creatures. 

Jacob cheated his brother out of the parental blessing, 
and lied about God, and lied to his father to accomplish 


THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE 87 


his end. He robbed his brother of his birthright by 
trading on his necessity. He fled from his brother’s 
wrath, and went to his uncle Laban. Here he cheated 
his uncle out of his cattle and his wealth, and at last came 
away with his two cousins as his wives, one of whom had 
stolen her own father’s gods. 

Abraham was the father of Ishmael by the servant- 
maid Hagar. At his wife’s demand he allowed Hagar 
and Ishmael to be driven into the desert to die. And 
here is another pretty story of Abraham. He and his 
family are driven forth by a famine: 


And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into 
Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know 
that thou art a fair woman to look upon: 

Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see 
thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, 
but they will save thee alive. 

Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with 
me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee. 

And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, 
the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. 

The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her be- 
fore Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. 

And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, 
and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and 
she asses, and camels. 

And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great 
plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 

And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou 
hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy 
wife? 

Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her 
to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go 
thy way. 

And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they 
sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had. 


But Abraham was so little ashamed of himself that he 
did the same thing again, many years afterwards, and 


Abimelech, King of Gerar, behaved to him as nobly as 
did King Pharaoh on the former occasion. 


38 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


The story of Lot is too disgusting to repeat. But 
what are we to think of his offering his daughters to the 
mob, and of his subsequent conduct? 

And what of Noah, who got drunk, and then cursesd 
the whole of his sons’ descendants forever, because Ham 
had seen him in his shame? 

Joseph seems to me to have been anything but an 
admirable character, and I do not see how his baseness 
in depriving the Egyptians of their liberties and their 
land by a corner in wheat can be condoned. Jacob 
robbed his brother of his birthright by trading on his 
hunger; Joseph robbed a whole people in the same way. 

Samson was a dissolute ruffian and murderer, who in 
these days would be hanged as a brigand. 

Reuben committed incest. Simeon and Levi were 
guilty of treachery and massacre. Judah was guilty of 
immorality and hypocrisy. 

Joshua was a Jewish general of the usual type. When 
he captured a city he murdered every man, woman, and 
child within its walls. Here is one example from the 
tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua: 

And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir; and 
fought against it: 

And he took it, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof ; 
and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly 
destroyed all the souls that were therein; he left none remain- 
ing: as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir, and to the 
king thereof; as he had done also to Libnah, and to her king. 

So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, 
and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left 
none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the 
Lord God of Israel commanded. 

And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, 
and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon. 

Elijah the prophet was of the same uncompromising 
kind. After he had mocked the god Baal, and had tri- 


umphed over him by a miracle, he said to the Israelites: 


THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE 89 


“Take the prophets of Baal. Let not one of them escape.” 
And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook 
Kishon, and slew them there. 

Now, there were 450 of the priests of Baal, all of 
whom Elijah the prophet had killed in cold blood. 

And here is a story about Elisha, another great prophet 
of the Jews. I quote from the second chapter of the 
Second Book of Kings: 


And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was go- 
ing up by the way, there came forth little children out of the 
city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; 
go up, thou bald head. 

And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in 
the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out 
of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 

After this, Elisha assists King Jehoram and two other 
kings to waste and slaughter the Moabites, who had re- 
fused to pay tribute. You may read the horrible story 
for yourselves in the third chapter of the Second Book of 
Kings. There was the usual massacre, but this time the 
trees were cut down and the wells choked up. 

Later, Elisha cures a man of leprosy, and refuses a 
reward. But his servant runs after the man, and gets 
two talents of silver and some garments under false pre- 
tenses. When Elisha hears of this crime, he strikes the 
servant with leprosy, and all his seed forever. 

Now, it is not necessary for me to harp upon the con- 
duct of these men of God: what I want to point out is 
that these cruel and ignorant savages have been saddled 
upon the Christian religion as heroes and as models. 

Even to-day the man who called David, or Moses, or 
Elisha by his proper name in an average Christian house- 
hold would be regarded as a wicked blasphemer. 

And yet, what would a Christian congregation say of 
an “Infidel”? who committed half the crimes and out- 
rages of any one of those Bible heroes? 


90 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Do you know what the Christians called Tom Paine? 
To this day the respectable Christian church- or chapel- 
goer shudders at the name of the “infidel,” Tom Paine. 
But in point of honor, of virtue, of humanity, and gen- 
eral good character, not one of the Bible heroes I have 
mentioned was worthy to clean Tom Paine’s shoes. 

Now, it states in the Bible that God loved Jacob, and 
hated Esau. 

Esau was a man, and against him the Bible does not 
chronicle one bad act. But God hated Esau. 

And it states in the Bible that Elijah went up in a 
chariot of fire to heaven. 

And in the New Testament Christ or His apostles 
speak of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as being in heaven. 
Paul speaks of David as a “ man after God’s own heart ”’; 
Elijah and Moses come down from heaven, and appear 
talking with Christ; and, in Hebrews, Paul praises Sam- 
uel, Jephtha, Samson, and David. 

My point is not that these heroes were bad men, but 
that, in a book alleged to be the word of God, they are 
treated as heroes. 

I have been accused of showing irreverence towards 
these barbarous kings and priests. Irreverence! It is 
like charging a historian with disrespect to the memory 
of Nero. 

I have been accused of having an animus against 
Moses, and David, and all the rest. I have no animus 
against any man, nor do I presume to censure my fellow 
creatures. I only wish to show that these favorites of 
God were not admirable characters, and that therefore 
the Bible cannot be a divine revelation. As for animus: 
I do not believe any of these men ever existed. I regard 
them as myths. Should one be angry with a myth? I 


THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE 91 


should as soon think of being angry with Bluebeard, or 
the Giant that Jack slew. 

But I should be astonished to hear that Bluebeard 
had been promoted to the position of a holy patriarch, 
and a model of all the virtues for the emulation of inno- 
cent children in a modern Sunday school. And I think 
it is time the Church considered itself, and told the truth 
about Jehovah, and Moses, and Joshua, and Samson. 

If you fail to agree with me I can only accept your 
decision with respectful astonishment. 


THE BOOK OF BOOKS 


Fioops of sincere, but unmerited, adulation have been 
lavished on the Hebrew Bible. The world has many 
books of higher moral and literary value. It would be 
easy to compile, from the words of Heretics and Infidels, 
a purer and more elevated moral guide than this “ Book 
of Books.” 

The ethical code of the Old Testament is no longer 
suitable as the rule of life. The moral and intellectual 
advance of the human race has left it behind. 

The historical books of the Old Testament are largely 
pernicious, and often obscene. These books describe, 
without disapproval, polygamy, slavery, concubinage, 
lying and deceit, treachery, incest, murder, wars of plun- 
der, wars of conquest, massacre of prisoners of war, mas- 
sacre of women and of children, cruelty to animals; and 
such immoral, dishonest, shameful, or dastardly deeds as 
those of Solomon, David, Abraham, Jacob, and Lot. 

The ethical code of the Old Testament does not teach 
the sacredness of truth, does not teach religious tolerance, 
nor humanity, nor human brotherhood, nor peace. 

Its morality is crude. Much that is noblest in modern 
thought has no place in the “ Book of Books.” For ex- 
ample, take these words of Herbert Spencer’s: 

Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such way that 
pain shall not be inflicted. 

There is nothing so comprehensive, nothing so deep 
as that in the Bible. That covers all the moralities of 
the Ten Commandments, and all the Ethics of the Law 


Q2 


THE BOOK OF BOOKS 93 


and the Prophets, in one short sentence, and leaves a 
handsome surplus over. 

Note next this, from Kant: 

What are the aims which are at the same time duties? They 
are the perfecting of ourselves, and the happiness of others. 

I do not know a Bible sentence so purely moral as that. 
And in what part of the Bible shall we find a parallel to 
the following sentence, from an Agnostic newspaper : 

Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of action 
are helps to the children of men in their search for wisdom. 

Tom Paine left Moses and Isaiah centuries behind 
when he wrote: 


The world is my country: to do good my religion. 


Robert Ingersoll, another “ Infidel,’ surpassed Solo- 
mon when he said: 

The object of life is to be happy, the place to be happy is here, 
the time to be happy is now, the way to be happy is by making 
others happy. 

Which simple sentence contains more wisdom than all 
the pessimism of the King of kings. And again, Inger- 
soll went beyond the sociological conception of the 
Prophets when he wrote: 

And let us do away for ever with the idea that the care of the 
sick, of the helpless, is a charity. It is not a charity: it is a 
duty. It is something to be done for our own sakes. It is no 
more a charity than it is to pave or light the streets, no more a 
charity than it is to have a system of sewers. It is all for the 
purpose of protecting society, and civilizing ourselves. 

T will now put together a few sayings of Pagans and 
Unbelievers as an example of non-biblical morality: 

Truth is the pole-star of morality, by it alone can we 
steer. Can there be a more horrible object in existence 
than an eloquent man not speaking the truth? Abhor 


04 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Dissimulation. To know the truth and fear to speak 
it: that is cowardice. One thing here is worth a good 
deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice, with a be- 
nevolent disposition, even to liars and unjust men. 

He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, for 
he makes himself bad. The practice of religion in- 
volves as a first priuciple a loving compassionate heart 
for all creatures. Religion means self-sacrifice. A 
loving heart is the great requirement: not to oppress, 
not to destroy, not to exalt oneself by treading down 
others; but to comfort and befriend those in suffering. 
Like as a mother at the risk of her life watches over 
her only child, so also let every one cultivate towards 
all beings a bounteous friendly mind. 

Man’s great business is to improve his mind. What 
is it to you whether another is guilty or guiltless? 
Come, friend, atone for your own fault. 

Virtue consists in contempt for death. Why should 
we cling to this perishable body? In the eye of the 
wise the only thing it is good for is to benefit one’s 
fellow creatures. 

Treat others as you wish them to treat you. Do not 
return evil for evil. Our deeds, whether good or evil, 
follow us like shadows. 

Never will man attain full moral stature ae woman 
is free. Cherish and reverence little children. Let the 
slave cease, and the master of slaves cease. 

To conquer your enemy by force increases his re- 
sentment. Conquer him by love and you will have no 
aftergrief. Victory breeds hatred. 

I look for no recompense — not even to be born in 
heaven — but seek the benefit of men, to bring back 
those who have gone astray, to enlighten those living 


THE BOOK OF BOOKS 95 


in dismal error, to put away all sources of sorrow and 

pain in the world. 

I cannot have pleasure while another grieves and I 
have power to help him. 

Those who regard the Bible as the “ Book of Books,” 
and believe it to be invaluable and indispensable to the 
world, must have allowed their early associations or re- 
ligious sentiment to mislead them. Carlyle is more moral 
than Jeremiah; Ruskin is superior to Isaiah; Ingersoll, 
the Atheist, is a nobler moralist and a better man than 
Moses; Plato and Marco Aurelius are wiser than Solo- 
~ mon; Sir Thomas More, Herbert Spencer, Thoreau, 
Matthew Arnold, and Emerson are worth more to us 
than all the Prophets. 

I hold a high opinion of the literary quality of some 
parts of the Old Testament; but I seriously think that 
the loss of the first fourteen books would be a distinct 
gain to the world. For the rest, there is considerable 
literary and some ethical value in Job (which is not 
Jewish), in Ecclesiastes (which is Pagan), in the Song 
of Solomon (which is an erotic love song), and in parts 
of Isaiah, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos. But 
I don’t think any of these books equal to Henry George’s 
Progress and Poverty, or William Morris’ News from 
Nowhere. Of course, I am not blaming Moses and the 
Prophets: they could only tell us what they knew. 

The Ten Commandments have been effusively praised. 
There is nothing in those Commandments to restrain the 
sweater, the rack-renter, the jerry-builder, the slum land- 
lord, the usurer, the liar, the libertine, the gambler, the 
drunkard, the wife-beater, the slave-owner, the religious 
persecutor, the maker of wheat and cotton rings, the fox- 
hunter, the bird-slayer, the ill-user of horses and dogs 


96 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


and cattle. There is nothing about “ cultivating towards 
all beings a bounteous friendly mind,” nothing about lib- 
erty of speech and conscience, nothing about the wrong 
of causing pain, nor the virtue of causing happiness ; 
nothing against anger or revenge, nor in favor of mercy 
and forgiveness. Of the Ten Commandments, seven are 
designed as defenses of the possessions and prerogatives 
of God and the property-owner. As a moral code the 
Commandments amount to very little. 

Moreover, the Bible teaches erroneous theories of his- 
tory, theology, and science. 

It relates childish stories of impossible miracles as 
facts. 

It presents a low idea of God. 

It gives an erroneous account of the relations between 
God and man. 

It fosters international hatred. 

It fosters religious pride and fanaticism. 

Its penal code is horrible. 

Its texts have been used for nearly two thousand years 
in defense of war, slavery, religious persecution, and the 
slaughter of “ witches” and of “ sorcerers.” 

In a hundred wars the Christian soldiery have per- 
petrated massacre and outrage with the blood-bolstered 
phrases of the Bible on their lips. 

In a thousand trials the cruel witness of Moses has sent 
innocent women to a painful death. 

And always when an apology or a defense of the bar- 
barities of human slavery was needed it was sought for 
and found in the Holy Bible. 

Renan says: 


In all ancient Christian literature there is not one word that 
tells the slave to revolt, or that tells the master to liberate the 


slave, or even that touches the problem of public right which 
arises out of slavery. 


THE BOOK OF BOOKS 97 


Mr. Remsburg, in his book, The Bible, shows that in 
America slavery was defended by the churches on the 
authority of the sacred Scriptures. He says: 


The Fugitive Slave law, which made us a nation of kidnapers, 
derived its authority from the New Testament. Paul had es- 
tablished a precedent by returning a fugitive slave to his master. 


Mr. Remsburg quotes freely from the sermons and 
speeches of Christian ministers to show the influence of 
the Bible in upholding slavery. Here are some of his 
many examples: 


The Rev. Alexander Campbell wrote: “ There is not one verse 
in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not, 
then, we conclude, immoral.” 

Said the Rev. Mr. Crawder, Methodist, of Virginia: “Slavery is 
not only countenanced, permitted, and regulated by the Bible, 
but it was positively instituted by God Himself.” 


I shall quote no more on the subject of slavery. That 
inhuman institution was defended by the churches, and 
the appeal of the churches was to the Bible. 

As to witchcraft, the Rev. T. Rhondda Williams says 
that in one century a hundred thousand women were 
killed for witchcraft in Germany. Mr. Remsburg offers 
still more terrible evidence; he says: 


One thousand were burned at Como in one year; eight hun- 
dred were burned at Wurzburg in one year; five hundred perished 
at Geneva in three months; eighty were burned in a single 
village of Savoy; nine women were burned in a single fire at 
Leith; sixty were hanged in Suffolk; three thousand were legally 
executed during one session of Parliament, while thousands more 
were put to death by mobs; Remy, a Christian judge, executed 
eight hundred; six hundred were burned by one bishop at Bam- 
burg; Bogult burned six hundred at St. Cloud; thousands were 
put to death by the Lutherans of Norway and Sweden; Catholic 
Spain butchered thousands; Presbyterians were responsible for 
the death of four thousand in Scotland; fifty thousand were 
sentenced to death during the reign of Francis I; seven thou- 
sand died at Tréves; the number killed in Paris in a few months 
is declared to have been “almost infinite.’ Dr. Sprenger places 
to total number of executions for witchcraft in Europe at 
nine millions. For centuries, witch fires burned in nearly every 


98 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


town of Europe, and this Bible text, “Thou shalt not suffer a 
witch to live,” was the torch that kindled them. 

Count up the terrible losses in the many religious wars 
of the world, add in the massacres, the martyrdoms, the 
tortures for religion’s sake; put to the sum the long tale 
of witchcraft murders; remember what slavery has been; 
and then ask yourselves whether the Book of Books de- 
serves all the eulogy that has been laid upon it. 

I believe that to-day all manner of evil passions are 
fostered, and all the finer motions of the human spirit are 
retarded, by the habit of reading those savage old books 
of the Jews as the word of God. 

I do not think the Bible, in its present form, is a fit 
book to place in the hands of children, and it certainly is 
not a fit book to send out for the “ salvation” of savage 


and ignorant people. 


ee = 


ee 


OUR HEAVENLY FATHER 


TuHE Rev. T. Rhondda Williams, in Shall We Understand 
the Bible, shows very clearly the gradual evolution of the 
idea of God amongst the Jews from a lower to a higher 
conception. 

Having dealt with the lower conception; let us now 
consider the higher. 

The highest conception of God is supposed to be the 
Christian conception of God as a Heavenly Father. This 
conception credits the Supreme Being with supernal ten- 
derness and mercy —“ God is Love.” That is a very 
lofty, poetical, and gratifying conception, but it is open to 
one fatal objection — it is not true. 

For this Heavenly Father, whose nature is Love, is 
also the All-knowing and All-powerful Creator of the 
world. 

Being All-powerful and All-knowing, He has power, 
and had always power, to create any kind of world He 
chose. Being a God of Love, He would not choose to 
create a world in which hate and pain should have a 
place. 

But there is evil in the world. There has been always 
evil in the world. Why did a good and loving God allow 
evil to enter the world? Being All-powerful and All- 
knowing, He could have excluded evil. Being good, He 
would hate evil. Being a God of Love, He would wish 
to exclude evil. Why, then, did He permit evil to enter? 

The world is full of sorrow, of pain, of hatred and 
crime, and strife and war. All life is a perpetual deadly 


oo 


100 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


struggle for existence. The law of nature is the law of 
prey. aa 

If God is a tender, loving, All-knowing and All-power- 
ful Heavenly Father, why did he build a world on cruel 
lines? Why does He permit evil and pain to continue? 
Why does He not give the world peace, and health, and 
happiness, and virtue? 

In the New Testament Christ compares God, as Heavy- 
enly Father to Man, as an earthly father, representing 
God as more benevolent and tender: ‘‘ How much more 
your Father which is in heaven?” 

We may, then, on the authority of the Founder of 
Christianity, compare the Christian Heavenly Father with 
the human father. And in doing so we shall find that 
Christ was not justified in claiming that God is a better 
father to Man than Man is to his own children. We 
shall find that the poetical and pleasing theory of a 
‘Heavenly Father and God of Love is a delusion. 

“ Who among you, if his child asks bread, will give him 
a stone?’”’ None amongst us. But in the great famines, 
as in India and Russia, God allows millions to die of 
starvation. These His children pray to Him for bread. 
He leaves them to die. Is it not so? 

God made the sunshine, sweet children, gracious 
women; green hills, blue seas; music, laughter, love, hu- 
mor; the palm tree, the hawthorn buds, the “ sweet-briar 
wind”; the nightingale and the rose. 

But God made the earthquake, the volcano, the cy- 
clone; the shark, the viper, the tiger, the octopus, the 
poison berry ; and the deadly loathsome germs of cholera, 
consumption, typhoid, smallpox, and the black death. 
God has permitted famine, pestilence, and war. He has 
permitted martyrdom, witch-burning, slavery, massacre, 
torture, and human sacrifice. He has for millions of 


OUR HEAVENLY FATHER 101 


years looked down upon the ignorance, the misery, the 
crimes of men. He has been at once the author and the 
audience of the pitiful, unspeakable, long-drawn and far- 
stretched tragedy of earthly life. Is it not so? 

For thousands of years—perhaps for millions of 
years — the generations of men prayed to God for help, 
for comfort, for guidance. God was deaf, and dumb, 
and blind. | 

Men of science strove to read the riddle of life; to 
guide and to succor their fellow creatures. The priests 
and followers of God persecuted and slew these men of 
science. God made no sign. Is it not so? 

To-day men of science are trying to conquer the hor- 
rors of cancer and smallpox, and rabies and consumption. 
But not from Burning Bush, nor Holy Hill, nor by the 
mouth of priest or prophet does our Heavenly Father 
utter a word of counsel or encouragement. 

Millions of innocent dumb animals have been sub- 
jected to the horrible tortures of vivisection in the frantic 
endeavors of men to find a way of escape from the fell 
destroyers of the human race; and God has allowed the 
piteous brutes to suffer anguish, when He could have 
saved them by revealing to Man the secret for which he 
so cruelly sought. Is it not so? 

“Nature is red in beak and claw.” On land and in 
sea the animal creation chase and maim, and slay and 
devour each other. The beautiful swallow on the wing 
devours the equally beautiful gnat. The graceful flying- 
fish, like a fair white bird, goes glancing above the blue 
magnificence of the tropical seas. His flight is one of 
terror; he is pursued by the ravenous dolphin. The 
ichneumon-fly lays its eggs under the skin of the cater- 
pillar. The eggs are hatched by the warmth of the 
caterpillar’s blood. They produce a brood of larve 


102 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


which devour the caterpillar alive. A pretty child dances 
on the village green. Her feet crush creeping things: 
there is a busy ant or blazoned beetle, with its back 
broken, writhing in the dust, unseen. A germ flies from 
a stagnant pool, and the laughing child, its mother’s 
darling, dies dreadfully of diphtheria. A tidal wave 
rolls landward, and twenty thousand human beings are 
drowned, or crushed to death. A volcano bursts sud- 
denly into eruption, and a beautiful city is a heap of 
ruins, and its inhabitants are charred or mangled corpses. 
And the Heavenly Father, who is Love, has power to 
save, and makes no sign. Is it not so? 

Blindness, epilepsy, leprosy, madness, fall like a dread- 
ful blight upon a myriad of God’s children, and the 
Heavenly Father gives neither guidance nor consolation. 
Only man helps man. Only man pities; only man tries 
to Save. 

Millions of harmless women have been burned as 
witches. God, our Heavenly Father, has power to save 
them. He allows them to suffer and die. 

God knew that those women were being tortured and 
burnt on a false charge. He knew that the infamous 
murders were in His name. He knew that the whole 
fabric of crime was due to the human reading of His 
“revelation” to man. He could have saved the women; 
He could have enlightened their persecutors; He could 
have blown away the terror, the cruelty, and the igno- 
rance of His priests and worshipers with a breath. 

And He was silent. He allowed the armies of poor 
women to be tortured and murdered in His name. Is it 
not so? 

Will you, then, compare the Heavenly Father with a 
father among men? Is there any earthly father who 
would allow his children to suffer as God allows Man to 


OUR HEAVENLY FATHER 103 


suffer? If a man had knowledge and power to prevent 
or to abolish war and ignorance and hunger and disease ; 
if a man had the knowledge and the power to abolish 
human error and human suffering and human wrong 
and did not do it, we should call him an inhuman mon- 
ster, a cruel fiend. Is it not so? 

But God has knowledge and power, and we are asked 
to regard Him as a Heavenly Father, and a God of in- 
finite wisdom, and infinite mercy, and infinite love. 

The Christians used to tell us, and some still tell us, 
that this Heavenly Father of infinite love and mercy 
would doom the creatures He had made to Hell — for 
their sins. That, having created us imperfect, He would 
punish our imperfections with everlasting torture in a 
lake of everlasting fire. They used to tell us that this 
good God allowed a Devil to come on earth and tempt 
man to his ruin. They-used to say this Devil would win 
more souls than Christ could win: that there should be 
“more goats than sheep.” 

To escape from these horrible theories, the Christians 
(some of them) have thrown over the doctrines of Hell 
and the Devil. 

But without a Devil how can we maintain a belief ina 
God of love and kindness? With a good God, and a bad 
God (or Devil), one might get along; for then the good 
might be ascribed to God, and the evil to the Devil. 
And that is what the old Persians did in their doctrine of 
Ormuzd and Ahrimann. But with no Devil the belief 
in a merciful and loving Heavenly Father becomes im- 
possible. 

If God blesses, who curses? If God saves, who 
damns? If God helps, who harms? 

This belief in a “ Heavenly Father,” like the belief in 
the perfection of the Bible, drives its votaries into weird 


104 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


and wonderful positions. For example, a Christian 
wrote to me about an animal called the aye-aye. He 
said: 

There is a little animal called an aye-aye. This animal has 
two hands. Each hand has five fingers. The peculiar thing 
about these hands is that the middle finger is elongated a great 
deal — it is about twice as long as the others. This is to enable 
it to scoop a special sort of insect out of special cracks in the 
special trees it frequents. Now, how did the finger begin to 
elongate? A little lengthening would be absolutely no good, as 
the cracks in the trees are 2 inches or 3 inches deep. It must 
have varied from the ordinary length to one twice as long at 
once. There is no other way. Where does natural selection 
come in? In this, as in scores of other instances, is shown the 
infinite goodness of God.” 

Now, how does the creation of this long finger show 
the “infinite goodness of God.” The infinite goodness 
of God to whom? To the animal whose special finger 
enables him to catch the insect? Then what about the 
insect? Where does he come in? Does not the long 
finger of the animal show the infinite badness of God to 
the insect? 

What of the infinite goodness of God in teaching the 
cholera microbe to feed on man? What of the infinite 
goodness of God in teaching the grub of the ichneumon- 
fly to eat up the cabbage caterpillar alive? 

I see no infinite goodness here, but only the infinite 
foolishness of sentimental superstition. 

If a man fell into the sea, and saw a shark coming, I 
cannot fancy him praising the infinite goodness of God 
in giving the shark so large a mouth. The greyhound’s 
speed is a great boon to the greyhound; but it is no boon 
to the hare. 

But this theory of a merciful and loving Heavenly 
Father is vital to the Christian religion. 

Destroy the idea of the Heavenly Father, who is Love, 
and Christianity is a heap of ruins. For there is no 


OUR HEAVENLY FATHER 108 


longer a benevolent God to build our hopes upon; and 
Jesus Christ, whose glory is a newer revelation of God, 
has not revealed Him truly, as He is, but only as Man 
fain would believe Him to be. 

And I claim that this Heavenly Father is a myth: that 
in face of a knowledge of life and the world, we cannot 
reasonably believe in Him. 

There is no Heavenly Father watching tenderly over 
us, His children. He is the baseless shadow of a wistful 
human dream. 


PRAYER AND PRAISE 


As to prayer and praise. 

Christians believe that God is just, that He is all-wise 
and all-knowing. 

If God is just, will He not do justice without being en- 
treated of men? 

If God is all-wise, and knows all that happens, will He 
not know what is for man’s good better than man can 
tell Him? i 

If He knows better than Man knows what is best for 
Man, and if He is a just God and a loving Father, will 
He not do right without any advice or reminder from 
Man? 

If He is a just God, will He give us less than justice 
unless we pray to Him; or will He give us more than 
justice because we importune Him? 

To ask God for His love, or for His grace, or for any 
worldly benefit seems to me unreasonable. 

If God knows we need His grace, or if He knows we 
need some help or benefit, He will give it to us if we 
deserve it. If we do not deserve it, or do not need what 
we ask for, it would not be just nor wise of Him to grant 
our prayer. 

To pray to God is to insult Him. What would a man 
think if his children knelt and begged for his love or for 
their daily bread? He would think his children showed — 
a very low conception of their father’s sense of duty and 
affection. 


Then Christians think God answers prayer. How can 
they think that? 


In the many massacres, and famines, and pestilences 
106 


PRAYER AND PRAISE 107 


has God answered prayer? As we learn more and more 
of the laws of nature we put less and less reliance on the 
effect of prayer. 

When fever broke out, men used to run to the priest; 
now they run to the doctor. In old times when plague 
struck a city, the priests marched through the streets 
bearing the Host, and the people knelt to pray; now the 
authorities serve out soap and medicine and look sharply 
to the drains. 

And yet there still remains a superstitious belief in 
prayer, and most surprising are some of its manifesta- 
tions. 

For instance, I went recently to see Wilson Barrett in 
The Silver King. Wilfrid Denver, a drunken gambler, 
follows a rival to kill him. He does not kill him, but he 
thinks he has killed him. He flies from justice. 

Now, this man Denver leaves London by a fast train 
for Liverpool. Between London and Rugby he jumps 
out of the train, and, after limping many miles, goes to an 
inn, orders dinner and a private room, and asks for the 
evening paper. 

While he waits for the paper he kneels down and prays 
to God, for the sake of wife and children, to allow him to 
escape. 

And, directly after, in comes a girl with the paper, and 
Denver reads how the train he rode in caught fire, and 
how all the passengers in the first three coaches were 
burnt to cinders. 

Down goes Denver on his knees, and thanks God for 
listening to his prayer. 

And not a soul in the audience laughed. God, to allow 
a murderer to escape from the law, has burnt to death a 
lot of innocent passengers, and Wilfrid Denver is piously 
grateful. And nobody laughed! 


108 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


But Christians tell us they know that prayer is effica- 
cious. And to them it may be so in some measure. Per- 
haps, if a man pray for strength to resist temptation, or 
for guidance in time of perplexity, and if he have faith, 
his prayer shall avail him something. 

Why? Not because God will hear, or answer, but for 
two natural reasons, 

First, the act of prayer is emotional, and so calms the 
man who prays, for much of his excitement is worked 
off. It is so when a sick man groans: it eases his pain. 
It is so when a woman weeps: it relieves her over- 
charged heart. 

Secondly, the act of prayer gives courage or confidence, 
in proportion to the faith of him that prays. If a man 
has to cross a deep ravine by a narrow plank, and if his 
heart fail him, and he prays for God’s help, believing 
that he will get it, he will walk his plank with more con- 
fidence. If he prays for help against a temptation, he 
is really appealing to his own better nature; he is rousing 
up his dormant faculty of resistance and desire for 
righteousness, and so rises from his knees in a sweeter 
and calmer frame of mind. 

For myself, I never pray, and never feel the need of 
prayer. And though I admit, as above, that it may have 
some present advantage, yet I am inclined to think that 
it is bought too dearly at the price of a decrease in our 
self-reliance. I do not think it is good for a man to be 
always asking for help, for benefits, or for pardon. It 
seems to me that such a habit must tend to weaken char- 
acter. | 

“ He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great 
and small.” It is better to work for the general good, to 
help our weak or friendless fellow-creatures, than to pray 


PRAYER AND PRAISE 109 


= 


for our own grace, or benefit, or pardon. Work is nobler 
than prayer, and far more dignified. 

And as to praise. I cannot imagine the Creator of the 
Universe wanting men’s praise. Does a wise man prize 
the praise of fools? Does a strong man value the praise 
of the weak? Does any man of wisdom and power care 
for the applause of his inferiors? 

We make God into a puny man, a man full of vanity 
and “love of approbation,” when we confer on Him the 
impertinence of our prayers and our adoration. 

While there is so much grief and misery and unmerited 
and avoidable suffering in the world, it is pitiful to see 
the Christian millions squander such a wealth of time 
and energy and money on praise and prayer. 

If you were a human father, would you rather your 
children praised you and neglected each other, or that 
brother should stand by brother and sister cherish 
sister? Then “how much more your Father which is in 
Heaven?” 

Twelve millions of our British people on the brink of 
starvation! In Christian England hundreds of thousands 
of thieves, knaves, idlers, drunkards, cowards, and har- 
lots; and fortunes spent on churches and the praise of 
God. | 

If the Bible had not habituated us to the idea of a 
barbarous God who was always ravenous for praise and 
sacrifice, we could not tolerate the mockery of “ Divine 
Service” by well-fed and respectable Christians in the 
midst of untaught ignorance, unchecked roguery, un- 
bridled vice, and the degradation and defilement and ruin 
of weak women and little children. Seven thousand 
pounds to repair a chapel to the praise and glory of God, 
and under its very walls you may buy a woman’s soul for 
a few pieces of silver. 


110 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


I cannot imagine a God who would countenance such 
a religion. I cannot understand why Christians are not 
ashamed of it. To me the national affectation of piety 
and holiness resembles a white shirt put on over a dirty 
skin. 


- 
ere L, 


y 


i a Se 


THE RESURRECTION 


VALUE OF THE EVIDENCE IN LAW 


CHRISTIANITY as a religion must, I am told, stand or fall 
with the claims that Christ was divine, and that He rose 
from the dead and ascended into Heaven. Archdeacon 
Wilson, in a sermon at Rochdale, described the divinity 
and Resurrection of Christ as “the central doctrines of 
Christianity.”” The question we have to consider here is 
the question of whether these central doctrines are true. 

Christians are fond of saying that the Resurrection is 
one of the best attested facts in history. I hold that the 
evidence for the Resurrection would not be listened to 
in a court of law, and is quite inadmissible in a court of 
cool and impartial reason. 

First of all, then, what is the fact which this evidence 
is supposed to prove? The fact alleged is a most marvel- 
ous miracle, and one upon which a religion professed by 
some hundreds of millions of human beings is founded. 
The fact alleged is that nearly two thousand years ago 
God came into the world as a man, that He was known 
as Jesus of Nazareth, that He was crucified, died upon 
the cross, was laid in a tomb, and on the third day came 
to life again, left His tomb, and subsequently ascended 
into Heaven. 

The fact alleged, then, is miraculous and important, 
and the evidence in proof of such a fact should be over- 
whelmingly strong. 

We should demand stronger evidence in support of a 

1 


114 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


thing alleged to have happened a thousand years ago than 
we should demand in support of a fact alleged to have 
happened yesterday. 

The Resurrection is alleged to have happened eighteen 
centuries ago. 

We should demand stronger evidence in support of an 
alleged fact which was outside human experience than we 
should demand in support of a fact common to human 
experience. 

The incarnation of a God in human form, the resurrec- 
tion of a man or a God from the dead, are facts outside 
human experience. 

We should demand stronger evidence in support of an 
alleged fact when the establishment of that fact was of 
great importance to millions of men and women, than 
we should demand when the truth or falsity of the al- 
leged fact mattered very little to anybody. 

The alleged fact of the Resurrection is of immense im- 
portance to hundreds of millions of people. 

We should demand stronger evidence in support of an 
alleged fact when many persons were known to have 
strong political, sentimental, or mercenary motives for 
proving the fact alleged, than we should demand when 
no serious interest would be affected by a decision for or 
against the fact alleged. 

There are millions of men and women known to have 
strong motives — sentimental, political, or mercenary — 
for proviny the verity of the Resurrection. 

On all these counts we are justified in demanding the 
strongest of evidence for the alleged fact of Christ’s 
resurrection from the dead. 

The more abnormal or unusual the occurrence, the 
weightier should be the evidence of its truth. 

If a man told a mixed company that Captain Webb 


THE RESURRECTION 115 


swam the English Channel, he would have a good chance 
of belief. 

The incident happened but a few years ago, it was re- 
ported in all the newspapers of the day. It is not in it- 
self an impossible thing for a man to do. 

But if the same man told the same audience that five 
hundred years ago an Irish sailor had swum from Holy- 
head to New York, his statement would be received with 
less confidence. 

Because five centuries is a long time, there is no credi- 
ble record of the feat, and we cannot believe any man 
capable of swimming about four thousand miles. 

Let us look once more at the statement made by the 
believers in the Resurrection. 

We are asked to believe that the all-powerful external 
God, the God who created twenty millions of suns, came 
down to earth, was born of a woman, was crucified, was 
dead, was laid in a tomb for three days, and then came to 
life again, and ascended into Heaven. 

What is the nature of the evidence produced in sup- 
port of this tremendous miracle? 

Is there any man or woman alive who has seen God? 
No. Is there any man or woman alive who has seen 
Christ? No. 

There is no human being alive who can say that God 
exists or that Christ exists. The most they can say is 
that they believe that God and Christ exist. 

No historian claims that any God has been seen on 
earth for nearly nineteen centuries. 

The Christians deny the assertions of all other re- 
ligions as to divine visits; and all the other religions deny 
their assertions about God and Christ. R 

There is no reason why God should have come down 
to earth, to be born of a woman, and die on the cross. 


116 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


He could have convinced and won over mankind with- 
out any such act. He has not convinced nor won over 
mankind by that act. Not one-third of mankind are 
professing Christians to-day, and of those not one in 
ten is a true Christian and a true believer. 

The Resurrection, therefore, seems to have been un- 
reasonable, unnecessary, and futile. It is also contrary 
to science and to human experience. 

What is the nature of the evidence? 

The common idea of the man in the street is the idea 
that the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John; that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were 
contemporaries of Christ; and that the Gospels were 
written and circulated during the lives of the authors. 

There is no evidence to support these beliefs. There 
is no evidence, outside the New Testament, that any of 
the Apostles ever existed. We know nothing about 
Paul, Peter, John, Mark, Luke, or Matthew, except 
what is told in the New Testament. 

Outside the Testament there is not a word of histor- 
ical evidence of the divinity of Christ, of the virgin 
birth, of the Resurrection or Ascension. 

Therefore it is obvious that, before we can be expected 
to believe the tremendous story of the Resurrection, we 
must be shown overwhelming evidence of the authen- 
ticity of the Scriptures. 

Before you can prove your miracle you have to prove 
your book. 

Suppose the case to come before a judge. Let us 
try to imagine what would happen: 

CounseL: M’lud, may it please your ludship. It is stated by 
Paul of Tarsus that he and others worked miracles — 

THE JupcE: Do you intend to call Paul of Tarsus? 


COUNSEL: No, m’lud. He is dead. 
Jupce: Did he make a proper sworn deposition? 


ff 
ee eS ee 


I a a RN ae 


pa er ee 


THE RESURRECTION 117 


CounsEL: No, m’lud. But some of his letters are extant, and 
I propose to put them in. 

Jupce: Are these letters affidavits? Are they witnessed and 
attested? 

CounsEL: No, m’lud. 

Junce: Are they signed? 

CouNnsEL: No, m’lud. 

Junce: Are they in the handwriting of this Paul of Tarsus? 

CounsEL: No, m’lud. They are copies; the originals are lost. 

Jupce: Who was Paul of Tarsus? 

CounsEL: M’lud, he was the apostle to the Gentiles. 

Jupce: You intend to call some of these Gentiles? 

CounsEL: No, m’lud. There are none living. 

Juvce: But you don’t mean to say — how long has this shadowy 
witness, Paul of Tarsus, been dead? 

CounsEL: Not two thousand years, m’lud. 

Jupce: Thousand years dead? Can you bring evidence to 
prove that he was ever alive? 

CouNnsEL: Circumstantial, m’lud. 

Junce: I cannot allow you to read the alleged statements of a 
hypothetical witness who is acknowledged to have been dead for 
nearly two thousand years. I cannot admit the alleged letters 
of Paul as evidence. 

CounseEL: I shall show that the act of resurrection was wit- 
nessed by one Mary Magdalene, by a Roman soldier — 

Jupce: What is the soldier’s name? 

CouNSEL: I don’t know, m’lud, 

Jupce: Call him. 

CouNnsEL: He is dead, m'lud. 

Junce: Deposition ? 

CounsEL: No, m’lud. 

JuncE: Strike out his evidence. Call Mary Magdalene. 

CounsEL: She is dead, m’lud. But I shall show that she told 
the disciples — 

JupcE: What she told the disciples is not evidence. 

CounsEL: Well, m’lud, I shall give the statements of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew states very plainly that — 

Juvce: Of course, you intend to call Matthew ? 

CounseL: No, m’lud. He is—he is dead. 

Jupce: It seems to me that to prove this resurrection you will 
have to perform a great many more. Are Mark and John dead, 
also? 

CounsEL: Yes, m’lud. 

Junce: Who were they? 

CounseL: I—I don’t know, m’lud. 

Juvce: These statements of theirs, to which you allude; are 
they in their own handwriting? 

CounseEL: May it please you ludship, they did not write them. 
The statements are not given as their own statements, but only 
as statements “according to them.” The statements are really 


118 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


copies of translations of copies of translations of statements sup- 
posed to be based upon what someone told Matthew, and-— 

Jupce: Who copied and translated, and re-copied and re- 
translated, this hearsay evidence? 

CounsEL: I do not know, m’lud. 

JupcE: Were the copies seen and revised by the authors? Did 
they correct the proofs? 

CounsEL: I don’t know, m’lud. 

Jupce: Don’t know? Why? 

CounsEL: There is no evidence that the documents had ever 
been heard of until long after the authors were dead. 

Jupce: I never heard of such a case. I cannot allow you to 
quote these papers. They are not evidence. Have you any wit- 
nesses ? 

CounsEL: No, m’lud. 


That fancy dialogue about expresses the legal value 
of the evidence for this important miracle. 


But, legal value not being the only. value, let us now 
consider the evidence as mere laymen. 


THE GOSPEL WITNESSES 


As men of the world, with some experience in sifting 
and weighing evidence, what can we say about the 
evidence for the Resurrection? 

In the first place, there is no acceptable evidence out- 
side the New Testament, and the New Testament is the 
authority of the Christian Church. 

In the second place, there is nothing to show that the 
Gospels were written by eye-witnesses of the alleged 
fact. 

In the third place, the Apostle Paul was not an eye- 
witness of the alleged fact. 

In the fourth place, although there is some evidence 
that some Gospels were known in the first century, there 
is no evidence that the Gospels as we know them were 
then in existence. 

In the fifth place, even supposing that the existing 
Gospels and the Epistles of Paul were originally com- 
posed by men who knew Christ, and that these men 
were entirely honest and capable witnesses, there is no 
certainty that what they wrote has come down to us 
unaltered. 

The only serious evidence of the Resurrection being 
in the books of the New Testament, we are bound to 
scrutinize those books closely, as on their testimony the 
case for Christianity entirely depends. 

Who, then, are the witnesses? They are the authors 
of the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles of Peter and 
of Paul. 


119 


120 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Who were these authcrs? Matthew and John are 
“supposed” to have been disciples of Christ; but were 
they? I should say Matthew certainly was not contem- 
porary with Jesus, for in the last chapter of the Gospel 
according to Matthew we read as follows: 

Now while they were going behold some of the guard came 
into the city, and told unto the chief priests all the things that 
were come to pass. And when they were assembled with the 
elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the 
soldiers, saying, Say ye his disciples came by night, and stole 
him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s 
ears, we will persuade him, and rid you of care. So they took 
the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying was 
spread abroad among the Jews, and continueth until this day. 

Matthew tells us that the saying “continueth until 
this day.” Which day? The day on which Matthew 
is writing or speaking. Now, a man does not say of a 
report or belief that it “continueth until this day” un- 
less that report or belief originated a long time ago, 
and the use of such a phrase suggests that Matthew 
told or repeated the story after a lapse of many years. 

That apart, there is no genuine historical evidence, 
outside the New Testament, that such men as Paul, 
Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ever existed. 

Neither can it be claimed that Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John actually wrote the Gospels which bear their 
names. These Gospels are called the Gospel “ accord- 
ing to Matthew,” the Gospel “ according to Mark,” the 
Gospel “according to Luke,” and the Gospel “ accord- 
ing to John.” They were, then, Gospels condensed, 
paraphrased, or copied from some older Gospels, or 
they were Gospels taken down from dictation, or com- 
posed from the verbal statements of the men to whom 
they were attributed. 

Thus it appears that the Gospels are merely reports 
or copies of some verbal or written statements made by 


THE GOSPEL WITNESSES 121 


four men of whom there is no historic record what- 
ever. 

How are we to know that these men ever lived? How 
are we to know that they were correctly reported, if 
they ever spoke or wrote? How can we rely upon such 
evidence after nineteen hundred years, and upon a state- 
ment of facts so important and so marvelous? 

The same objection applies to the evidence of Peter 
and of Paul. Many critics and scholars deny the ex- 
istence of Peter and Paul. There is no trustworthy 
evidence to oppose to that conclusion. 

That by the way. Let us now examine the evidence 
given in these men’s names. The earliest witness is 
Paul. Paul does not corroborate the Gospel writers’ 
statements as to the life or the teachings of Christ; but 
he does vehemently assert that Christ rose from the 
dead. 

What is Paul’s evidence worth? He did not see 
Christ crucified. He did not see His dead body. He 
did not see Him quit the tomb. He did not see Him in 
the flesh after He had quitted the tomb. He was not 
present when He ascended into Heaven. Therefore 
Paul is not an eye-witness of the acts of Christ, nor of 
the death of Christ, nor of the Resurrection of Christ, 
nor of the Ascension of Christ. 

If Paul ever lived, which none can prove and many 
deny, his evidence for the Resurrection was only hear- 
say evidence. 

Paul, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, says that after 
His Resurrection Christ was “seen of about five hun- 
dred persons; of whom the great part remain unto this 
present, but some are fallen asleep.” 

But none of the Gospels mentions this five hundred, 
nor does Paul give the name of any one of them, nor 


122 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


is the testimony of any one of them preserved, in the 
Testament or elsewhere. 

Now, let us remember how difficult it was to disprove 
the statements of the claimant in the Tichborne Case, 
although the trial took place in the lifetime of the 
claimant, and although most of the witnesses knew the 
real Roger Tichborne well; and let us also bear in mind 
that many critics and scholars dispute the authorship 
of Shakespeare’s plays, as to which strong contemporary 
evidence is forthcoming, and then let us ask ourselves 
whether we shall be justified in believing such a marvel- 
ous story as this of the Resurrection upon the evidence 
of men whose existence cannot be proved, and in sup- 
port of whose statements there is not a scrap of histor- 
ical evidence of any kind. 

Nor is this all. The stories of the Resurrection as 
told in the Gospels are full of discrepancies, and are 
rendered incredible by the interpolation of miraculous 
incidents. 

Let us begin with Matthew. Did Matthew see Christ 
crucified? Did Matthew see Christ’s dead body? Did 
Matthew see Christ quit the tomb? Did Matthew see 
Christ in the flesh and alive after. His Resurrection? 
Did Matthew see Christ ascend into heaven? Matthew 
nowhere says so. Nor is it stated by any other writer in 
the Testament that Matthew saw any of these things. 
No: Matthew nowhere gives evidence in his own name. 
Only, in the Gospel “ according to Matthew ” it is stated 
that such things did happen. 

Matthew’s account of the Resurrection and the inci- 
dents connected therewith differs from the accounts in 
the other Gospels. 

The story quoted above from Matthew as to the brib- 
ing of Roman soldiers by the priests to circulate the 


THE GOSPEL WITNESSES 123 


falsehood about the stealing of Christ’s body by His 
disciples is not alluded to by Mark, Luke, or John. 

Matthew, in his account of the fact of the Resurrec- 
tion, says that there was an earthquake when the angel 
rolled away the stone. In the other Gospels there is no 
word of this earthquake. 

But not in any of the Gospels is it asserted that any 
man or woman saw Jesus leave the tomb. 

The story of His actual rising from the dead was first 
told by some woman, or women, who said they had 
seen an angel, or angels, who had declared that Jesus 
was risen. 7 

There is not an atom of evidence that these young 
men who told the story were angels. There is not an 
atom of evidence that they were not men, nor that they 
had not helped to revive or to remove the swooned or 
dead Jesus. — 

Stress has been laid upon the presence of the Roman 
guard. The presence of such a guard is improbable. 
But if the guard was really there, it might have been as 
easily bribed to allow the body to be removed, as 
Matthew suggests that it was easily bribed to say that 
the body had been stolen. 

Matthew says that after the Resurrection the disciples 
were ordered to go to Galilee. Mark says the same. 
_ Luke says they were commanded not to leave Jerusalem. 
John says they did go to Galilee. 

So, again, with regard to the Ascension. Luke and 
Mark say that Christ went up to Heaven. Matthew 
and John do not so much as mention the Ascension. 
And it is curious, as Mr. Foote points out, that the two 
apostles who were supposed to have been disciples of 
Christ, and might be supposed to have seen the Ascen- 
sion, if it took place, do not mention it. The story of 


124 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the Ascension comes to us from Luke and Mark, who 
were not present. 

Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. Yet Luke 
makes Him say to the thief on the cross: “ Verily I 
say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Para- 
dise.” Matthew, Mark, and John do not repeat this 
blunder. 

There are many other differences and contradictions 
in the Gospel versions of the Resurrection and Ascen- 
sion; but as I do not regard those differences as impor- 
tant, I shall pass them by. 

Whether or not the evidence of these witnesses be 
contradictory, the facts remain that no one of them 
states that he knows anything about the matter of his 
own knowledge; that no one of them claims to have 
himself heard the story of the woman, or the women, 
or the angels; that no one of them states that the women 
saw, or said they saw, Christ leave the tomb. 

As for the alleged appearances of Christ to the disci- 
ples, those appearances may be explained in several ways. 
We may say that Christ really had risen from the dead, 
and was miraculously present; we may say that the 
accounts of His miraculous appearance are legends; or 
we may say that His reappearance was not miraculous 
at all, for He had never died, but only swooned. 

As Huxley remarked, when we are asked to consider 
an alleged case of resurrection, the first essential fact 
to make sure of is the fact of death. Before we argue 
as to whether a dead man came to life, let us have 
evidence that he was dead. 

Considering the story of the crucifixion as historical, 
it cannot be said that the evidence of Christ’s death is 
conclusive. : 

Death by crucifixion was generally a slow death. 


eg a i 


THE GOSPEL WITNESSES 125 


Men often lingered on the cross for days before they 
died. Now, Christ was only on the cross for a few 
hours; and Pilate is reported as expressing surprise 
when told that he was dead. 

To make sure that the other prisoners were dead, the 
soldiers broke their legs. But they did not break Christ’s 
legs. 

To be sure, the Apostle John reports that a soldier 
pierced Christ’s side with a spear. But the authors of 
the three synoptic Gospels do not mention this wound- 
ing with the spear. Neither do they allude to the other 
story told by John, as to the skepticism of Thomas, and 
his putting his hand into the wound made by the spear. 
It is curious that John is the only one to tell both stories: 
so curious that both stories look like interpellations. 

But even if we accept the story of the spear thrust, it 
affords no proof of death, for John adds that there issued 
from the wound blood and water; and blood does not 
flow from wounds inflicted after death. 

Then, when the body of Christ was taken down from 
the cross, it was not examined by any doctor, but was 
taken away by friends, and laid in a cool sepulcher. 

What evidence is forthcoming that Christ did not re- 
cover from a swoon, and that His friends did not 
take Him away in the night? Remember, we are deal- 
ing with probabilities, in the absence of any exact knowl- 
edge of the facts, and consider which is more prob- 
able — that a man had swooned and recovered; or that 
a man, after lying for three days dead, should come to 
life again, and walk away? 

Apologists will say that the probabilities in the case 
of a man do not hold in the case of a God. But there 
is no evidence at all that Christ was God. Prove that 
Christ was God, and therefore that He was omnipotent, 


126 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


and there is nothing impossible in the Resurrection, 
however improbable His death may seem. 

Even assuming that the Gospels are historical docu- 
ments, the evidence for Christ’s death is unsatisfactory, 
and that for His Resurrection quite inadequate. But 
is there any reason to regard the Gospel stories of the 
death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ as histor- 
ical? I say that we have no surety that these stories 
have come down to us as they were originally compiled, 
and we have strong reasons for concluding that these 
stories are mythical. 

Some two or three years ago the Rev. R. Horton 
said: “ Either Christ was the Son of God, and one with 
God, or He was a bad man, or a madman. There is no 
fourth alternative possible.” That is a strange state- 
ment to make, but it is an example of the shifts to which 
apologists are frequently reduced. No fourth alterna- 
tive possible! Indeed there is; and a fifth! 

If a man came forward to-day, and said he was the 
Son of God, and one with God, we should conclude that 
He was an impostor or a lunatic. ) 

But if a man told us that another man had said he 
was a god, we should have what Mr. Horton calls a 
“fourth alternative” open to us. For we might say 
that the person who reported his speech to us had mis- 
understood him, which would be a “fourth alterna- 
tive”; or that the person had willfully misrepresented 
him, which would be a fifth alternative. 

So in the Gospels. Nowhere have we a single word 
of Christ’s own writing. His sayings come to us through 
several hands, and through more than one translation. 
It is folly, then, to assert that Christ was God, or that 
He was mad, or an impostor. 

So in the case of the Gospel stories of the Crucifixion, 


THE GOSPEL WITNESSES 127 


the Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. Many 
worthy people may suppose that in denying the facts 
stated in the Gospels we are accusing St. Matthew and 
St. John of falsehood. 

But there is no certainty who St. Matthew and the 
others were. There is no certainty that they wrote these 
stories. Even if they did write them, they probably ac- 
cepted them at second or third hand. With the best 
faith in the world, they may not have been competent 
judges of evidence. And after they had done their best 
their testimony may have been added to or perverted 
by editors and translators. 

Looking at the Gospels, then, as we should look at 
any other ancient documents, what internal evidence do 
they afford in support of the suspicion that they are 
mythical ? 

In the first place, the whole Gospel story teems with 
miracles. Now, as Matthew Arnold said, miracles never 
happen. Science has made the belief in miracles im- 
possible. When we speak of the antagonism between 
religion and science, it is this fact which we have in our 
mind: that science has killed the belief in miracles, and, 
as all religions are built up upon the miraculous, science 
and religion cannot be made to harmonize. 

As Huxley said: 


The magistrate who listens with devout attention to the pre- 
cept, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” on Sunday, on 
Monday dismisses, as intrinsically absurd, a charge of bewitching 
a cow brought against some old woman; the superintendent of a 
lunatic asylum, who substituted exorcism for rational modes of 
treatment, would have but a short tenure of office; even parish 
clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as the wind 
is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men, not to 
the churches, but to the drains. In spite of prayers for the 
success of our arms, and Te Deums for victory, our real faith is 
in big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in knowledge of 
the science of warfare; in energy, courage, and discipline. In 


‘ 


128 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


these, as in all other practical affairs, we act on the aphorism, 
Laborare est orare; we admit that intelligent work is the only 
acceptable worship; and that, whether there be a Supernature or 
not, our business is with Nature. 


We have ceased to believe in miracles. When we. 


come upon a miracle in any historical document we feel 
not only that the miracle is untrue, but also that its 
presence reduces the value of the document in which 
it is contained. Thus Matthew Arnold, ‘in Literature 
and Dogma, after saying that we shall “ find ourselves 
inevitably led, sooner or latter,” to extend one rule to 
all miraculous stories, and that “the considerations 
which apply in other cases apply, we shall most surely 
discover, with even greater force in the case of Bible 
miracles,” goes on to declare that “this being so, there 
is nothing one would more desire for a person or docu- 
ment one greatly values than to make them independent 
miracles.” 

Very well. The Gospels teem with miracles. If we 
make the accounts of the death, Resurrection, and As- 
cension of Christ “independent of miracles,” we destroy 
those accounts completely. To make the Resurrection 
“independent of miracles” is to disprove the Resur- 
rection, which is a miracle or nothing. 

We must believe in miracles, or disbelieve in the Res- 
urrection; and “miracles never happen.” 

We must believe miracles, or disbelieve them. If we 
disbelieve them, we shall lose confidence in the verity 
of any document in proportion to the element of the 
miraculous which that document contains. The fact 
that the Gospels teem with miracles destroys the claim 
of the Gospels to serious consideration as historic evi- 
dence. 

Take, for example, the account of the Crucifixion in 
the Gospel according to Matthew. While Christ is on 


oe. 


THE GOSPEL WITNESSES 129 


the cross, “from the sixth hour there was darkness 
over all the land until the ninth hour,’ and when He 
dies, “‘ behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain 
from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake; 
and the rocks were rent, and the tombs were opened; 
and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep 
were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after 
His Resurrection, they entered into the holy city, and 
appeared unto many.” 

Mark mentions the rending of the veil of the temple, 
but omits the darkness, the earthquake, and the rising 
of the dead saints from the tombs. Luke tells of the 
same phenomena as Mark; John says nothing about 
any of these things. 

What conclusion can we come to, then, as to the story 
in the first Gospel? Here is an earthquake and the 
rising of dead saints, who quit their graves and 
enter the city, and three out of the four Gospel writers 
do not mention it. Neither do we hear another word 
from Matthew on the subject. The dead get up and 
walk into the city, and “are seen of many,’ and we 
are left to wonder what happened to the risen saints, 
and what effect their astounding apparition had upon 
the citizens who saw them. Did these dead saints go 
back to their tombs? Did the citizens receive them into 
their midst without fear, or horror, or doubt? Had 
this stupendous miracle no effect upon the Jewish 
priests who had crucified Christ as an impostor? The 
Gospels are silent. 

History is as silent as the Gospels. From the fifteenth 
chapter of the first volume of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire I take the following passage: 


But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan 
and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented 


130 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their 
senses? During the age of Christ, of His Apostles, and of their 
first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed 
by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the 
sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, 
and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the bene- 
ft of the Church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned 
aside from the awful spectacle, and pursuing the ordinary occu- 
pations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any altera- 
tions in the moral or physical government of the world. Under 
the reign of Tiberius the whole earth, or at least a celebrated 
province of the Roman Empire, was involved in a preternatural 
darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought 
to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of all 
mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. 
It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, 
who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the 
earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in 
a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of 
Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his in- 
defatigable curiosity could collect. But the one and the other 
have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which mortal 
eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct 
chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary 
nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with de- 
scribing the singular defect of light which followed the murder 
of Cesar, when, during the greatest part of the year, the orb of 
the sun appeared pale and without splendor. This season of ob- 
scurity, which surely cannot be compared with the preternatural 
darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated by most 
of the poets and historians of that memorable age. 


No Greek nor Roman historian nor scientist mentioned 
that strange eclipse. No Jewish historian nor scientist 
mentioned the rending of the veil of the temple, nor 
the rising of the saints from the dead. Nor do the Jew- 
ish priests appear to have been alarmed or converted 
by these marvels. 

Confronted by this silence of all contemporary histo- 
rians, and by the silence of Mark, Luke, and John, what 
are we to think of the testimony of Matthew on these 


points? Surely we can only endorse the opinion of 
Matthew Arnold: 


And the more the miraculousness of the story deepens, as after 
the death of Jesus, the more does the texture of the incidents 


ee ee 


a —— _— * Se 
Re ee eae ee ea 


THE GOSPEL WITNESSES ii 


become loose and floating, the more does the very air and aspect 
of things seem to tell us we are in wonderland. Jesus after his 
resurrection not known by Mary Magdalene, taken by her for the 
gardener; appearing in another form, and not known by the two 
disciples going with him to Emmaus and at supper with him there; 
not known by His most intimate apostles on the borders of the Sea 
of Galilee; and presently, out of these vague beginnings, the rec- 
ognitions getting asserted, then the ocular demonstrations, the 
final commissions, the ascension; one hardly knows which of the 
two to call the most evident here, the perfect simplicity and good 
faith of the narrators, or the plainness with which they them- 
selves really say to us: Behold a legend growing under your eyes! 


Behold a legend growing under your eyes! Now, 
when we have to consider a miracle-story or a legend, 
it behoves us to look, if that be possible, into the times 
in which that legend is placed. What was the “time 
spirit” in the day when this legend arose? What was 
the attitude of the general mind towards the miraculous? 
To what stage of knowledge and science had those who 
created or accepted the myth attained? These are points 
that will help us signally in any attempt to understand 
such a story as the Gospel story of the Resurrection. 


THE. TIME SPIRIT IN CHE FIRST CEN Die 


A sToRY emanating from a superstitious and unscientific 
people would be received with more doubt than a story 
emanating from people possessing a knowledge of 
science, and not prone to accept stories of the marvelous 
without strict and full investigation. 

A miracle story from an Arab of the Soudan would 
be received with a smile, a statement of some occult 
mystery made by a Huxley or a Darwin would be ac- 
corded a respectful hearing and a serious criticism. 

Now, the accounts of the Resurrection in the Gospels 
belong to the less credible form of statement. They 
emanated from a credulous and superstitious people in 
an unscientific age and country. 

The Jews in the days of which the Gospels are sup- 
posed to tell, and the Jews of Old Testament times, were 
unscientific and superstitious people, who believed in 
sorcery, in witches, in demons and angels, and in all 
manner of miracles and supernatural agents. We have 
only to read the Scriptures to see that it was so. But 
I shall quote here, in support of my assertion, the opin- 
ions taken by the author of Supernatural Religion from 
the works of Dean Milman and Dr. Lightfoot. In his 


History of Christianity Dean Milman speaks of the Jews 
as follows: 


The Jews of that period not only believed that the Supreme 
Being had the power of controlling the course of nature, but that 
the same influence was possessed by multitudes of subordinate 
spirits, both good and evil. Where the pious Christian of the 
present day would behold the direct Agency of the Almighty, the 
Jews would have invariably have interposed an angel as the 
author or ministerial agent in the wonderful transaction. Where 
the Christian moralist would condemn the fierce passion, the un- 


132 


i 
' 
¥ 
: 
’ i 


TIME SPIRIT IN THE FIRST CENTURY 133 


governable lust, or the inhuman temper, the Jew discerned the 
workings of diabolical possession. Scarcely a malady was en- 
dured, or crime committed, which was not traced to the opera- 
tion of one of these myriad demons, who watched every oppor- 
tunity of exercising their malice in the sufferings and the sins of 
men. 


Read next the opinion of John Lightfoot D.D., Master 
of Catherine Hall, Cambridge: 

wee Let two things only be observed: (1) That the nation 
under the Second Temple was given to magical arts beyond 
measure; and (2) that it was given to an easiness of believing all 


manner of delusions beyond measure. . . . It is a disputable 
case whether the Jewish nation were more mad with supersti- 


+ 


tion in matters of religion, or with superstition in curious arts: 
(1) There was not a people upon earth that studied or attrib- 
uted more to dreams than they; (2) there was hardly any people 
in the whole world that more used, or were more fond of, amu- 
lets, charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments. 


It is from this people, “ mad with superstition” in re- 
ligion and in sorcery, the most credulous people in the 
whole world, a people destitute of the very rudiments 
of science, as science is understood to-day —it is from 
this people that the unreasonable and impossible stories 
of the Resurrection, colored and distorted on every page 
with miracles, come down to us. 

We do not believe that miracles happen now. Are 
we, on the evidence of such a people, to believe that 
miracles happened two thousand years ago? 

We in England to-day do not believe that miracles 
happen now. Some of us believe, or persuade ourselves 
that we ‘believe, that miracles did happen a few thousand 
years ago. 

But amongst some peoples the belief in miracles still 
persists, and wherever the belief in miracles is strongest 
we shall find that the people who believe are ignorant 
of physical science, are steeped in superstition, or are 
abjectly subservient to the authority of priests or fakirs. 
Scientific knowledge and freedom of thought and speech 
are fatal to superstition. It is only in those times, or 


9 


134 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


amongst those people, where ignorance is rampant, or 
the priest is dominant, or both, that miracles are be- 
lieved. 

It will be urged that many educated Englishmen still 
believe the Gospel miracles. That is true; but it will be 
found in nearly all such cases that the believers have 
been mentally marred by the baneful authority of the 
Church. Let a person once admit into his system the 
poisonous principle of “ faith,” and his judgment in re- 
ligious matters will be injured for years, and probably 
for life. 

But let me here make clear what I mean by the poison- 
ous principle of “ faith.” I mean, then, the deadly prin- 
ciple that we are to believe any statement, historical or 
doctrinal, without evidence. 

Thus we are to believe that Christ rose from the dead 
because the Gospels say so. When we ask why we are 
to accept the Gospels as true, we are told because they 
are inspired by God. When we ask who says that the 
Gospels are inspired by God, we are told that the Church 
says so. When we ask how the Church knows, we are 
told that we must have faith. That is what I call poison- 
ous principle. That is the poison which saps the judg- 
ment and perverts the human kindness of men. 

The late Dr. Carpenter wrote as follows: 

It has been my business lately to inquire into the mental condi- 
tion of some of the individuals who have reported the most re- 
markable occurrences. I cannot —it would not be fair — say all 
I could with regard to their mental condition ; but I can only say 
this, that it all fits in perfectly well with the result of my previous 
studies upon the subject, namely, that there is nothing too strange 
to be believed by those who have once surrendered their judg- 
ment to the extent of accepting as credible things which com- 
mon sense tells us are entirely incredible. 

It is unwise and immoral to accept any important 
statement without proof. 


HAVE THE DOCUMENTS BEEN TAMPERED 
WITH 


I come now to a phase of this question which I touch 
with regret. It always pains me to acknowledge that any 
man, even an adversary, has acted dishonorably. In this 
discussion I would, if I could, avoid the imputation of 
dishonesty to any person concerned in the foundation 
or adaptation of the Christian religion. But I am bound 
to point out the probability that the Gospels have been 
tampered with by unscrupulous or over-zealous men. 
That probability is very strong, and very important. 

In the first place, it is too well known to make denial 
possible that many Gospels have been rejected by the 
Church as doubtful or as spurious. In the second place, 
some of the books in the accepted canon are regarded as 
of doubtful origin. In the third place, certain passages 
of the Gospels have been relegated to the margin by the 
translators of the Revised Version of the New Testa- 
ment. In the fourth place, certain historic Christian 
evidence —as the famous interpolation in Josephus, for 
instance —has been branded as forgeries by eminent 
Christian scholars. 

Many of the Christian fathers were holy men, many 
priests have, been, and are, honorable and sincere; but it 
is notorious that in every Church the world has ever 
known there has been a great deal of fraud and forgery 
and deceit. I do not say this with any bitterness, I do 
not wish to emphasize it; but I must go so far as to show 
that the conduct of some of the early Christians was of a 


135, 


136 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


character to justify us in believing that the Scriptures 
have been seriously tampered with. 

Mosheim, writing on this subject, says: 

A pernicious maxim which was current in the schools, not 
only of the Egyptians, the Platonists, and the Pythagoreans, but 
also of the Jews, was very early recognized by the Christians, 
and soon found among them numerous patrons —namely, that 
those who made it their business to deceive, with a view of pro- 
moting the cause of truth, were deserving rather of commenda- 
tion than of censure. 

And if we seek internal evidence in support of this 
charge we need go no further than St. Paul, who is re- 
ported (Rom. iii. 7) as saying: ‘“ For if the truth of 
God hath more’ abounded through my lie unto His glory, 
why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” I do not fora 
moment suppose that Paul ever wrote those words. But 
they are given as his in the Epistle bearing his name. I 
daresay they may be interpreted in more than one way: 
my point is that they were interpreted in an evil way by 
many primitive Christians, who took them as a warranty 
that it was right to lie for the glory of God. 

Mosheim, writing of the Church of the fifth century, 
alludes to the 
Base audacity of those who did not blush to palm their own 
spurious productions on the great men of former times, and 
even on Christ Himself and His apostles, so that they might be 
able, in the councils and in their books, to oppose names against 
names and authorities against authorities. The whole Christian 


Church was, in this century, overwhelmed with these disgrace- 
ful fictions. 


Dr. Giles speaks still more strongly. He says: 


But a graver accusation than that of inaccuracy or deficient 
authority lies against the writings which have come down to us 
from the second century. There can be no doubt that great 
numbers of books were then written with no other view than 
to deceive the simple-minded multitude who at that time formed 
the great bulk of the Christian community. 


THE QUESTION OF FRAUD 137 


Dean Milman says: 


It was admitted and avowed that to deceive into Christianity 
was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit itself. 


Bishop Fell says: 


In the first ages of the Church, so extensive was the license 
of forging, so credulous were the people in believing, that the 
evidence of transactions was grievously obscured. 


John E. Remsburg, author of the newly published 
American book, The Bible, says: 


That these admissions are true, that primitive Christianity was 
propagated chiefly by falsehood, is tacitly admitted by all Chris- 
tians. They characterize as forgeries, or unworthy of credit, 
three-fourths of the early Christian writings. 


Mr. Lecky, the historian, in his European Morals, 
writes in the following uncompromising style: 


The very large part that must be assigned to_ deliberate for- 
geries in the early apologetic literature of the Church we have 
already seen; and no impartial reader can, I think, investigate 
the innumerable grotesque and lying legends that, during the 
whole course of the Middle Ages, were deliberately palmed upon 
mankind as undoubted facts, can follow the history of the false 
decretals, and the discussions that were connected with them, 
or can observe the complete and absolute incapacity most Cath- 
olic historians have displayed of conceiving any good thing in 
the ranks of their opponents, or of stating with common fair- 
ness any consideration that can tell against their cause, without 
acknowledging how serious and how inveterate has been the 
evil. It is this which makes it so unspeakably repulsive to all 
independent and impartial thinkers, and has led a great German 
historian (Herder) to declare, with much bitterness, that the 
phrase “Christian veracity” deserves to rank with the phrase 
“Punic faith.” 


I could go on quoting such passages. I could give 
specific instances of forgery by the dozen, but I do not 
think it necessary. It is sufficient to show that forgery 
was common, and has been always common, amongst all 
kinds of priests, and that therefore we cannot accept the 
Gospels as genuine and unaltered documents. 


138 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Yet upon these documents rests the whole fabric of 
Christianity. 
Professor Huxley says: 


There is no proof, nothing more than a fair presumption, that 
any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in which we find it 
in the authorized version of the Bible, before the second cen- 
tury, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the events 
recorded. And between that time and the date of the oldest 
extant manuscripts of the Gospels there is no telling what addi- 
tions and alterations and interpolations may have been made. 
It may be said that this is all mere speculation, but it is a good 
deal more. As competent scholars and honest men, our revisers 
have felt compelled to point out that such things have happened 
even since the date of the oldest known manuscripts. The old- 
est two copies of the second Gospel end with the eighth verse 
of the sixteenth chapter; the remaining twelve verses are spuri- 
ous, and it is noteworthy that the maker of the addition has 
not hesitated to introduce a speech in which Jesus promises His 
disciples that “in My name shall they cast out devils.” ° 

The other passage “rejected to the margin” is still more in- 
structive. It is that touching apologue, with its profound ethical 
sense, of the woman taken in adultery — which, if internal evi- 
dence were an infallible guide, might well be affirmed to be a 
typical example of the teachings of Jesus. Yet, say the revisers, 
pitilessly, “ Most of the ancient authorities omit John vii. 53-viil. 
11.’ Now, let any reasonable man ask himself this question: 
If, after an approximate settlement of the canon of the New 
Testament, and even later than the fourth and fifth centuries, 
literary fabricators had the skill and the audacity to make such 
additions and interpolations as these, what may they have done 
when no one had thought of a canon; when oral tradition, still 
unfixed, was regarded as more valuable than such written records 
as may have existed in the latter portion of the first century? 
Or, to take the other alternative, if those who gradually settled 
the canon did not know of the oldest codices which have come 
down to us; or if, knowing them, they rejected their authority, 
what is to be thought of their competency as critics of the text? 


Since alterations have been made in the text of Scrip- 
ture we can never be certain that any particular text is 


genuine, and this circumstance militates seriously against 
the value of the evidence for the Resurrection. 


CHRISTIANITY BEFORE CHRIST 


Ir the story of Christ’s life were true, we should not ex- 
pect to find that nearly all the principal events of that life 
had previously happened in the lives of some earlier god 
or gods, long since acknowledged to be mythical. 

If the Gospel record were the only record of a god 
coming upon earth, of a god born of a virgin, of a god 
slain by men, that record would seem to us more plausi- 
ble than it will seem if we discover proof that other and 
earlier gods have been fabled to have come on earth, to 
have been born of virgins, to have lived and taught on 
earth, and to have been slain by men. 

Because, if the events related in the life of Christ have 
been previously related as parts of the lives of earlier 
mythical gods, we find ourselves confronted by the possi- 
bilities that what is mythical in one narrative may be 
mythical in another; that if one god is a myth another 
god may be a myth; that if 400,000,000 of Buddhists 
have been deluded, 200,000,000 of Christians may be de- 
luded; that if the events of Christ’s life were alleged to 
have happened before to another person, they may have | 
been adopted from the older story, and made features of 
the new. 

If Christ was God — the omnipotent, eternal, and only 
God — come on earth, He would not be likely to repeat 
acts, to re-act the adventures of earlier and spurious 
gods; nor would His divine teachings be mere shreds and 
patches made up of quotations, paraphrases, and repeti- 


139 


140 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


tions of earlier teachings, uttered by mere mortals, or 
mere myths. 

What are we to think, then, when we find that there 
are hardly any events in the life of Christ which were 
not, before His birth, attributed to mythical gods; that 
there are hardly any acts of Christ’s which may not be 
paralleled by acts attributed to mythical gods before His 
advent; that there are hardly any important thoughts at- 
tributed to Christ which had not been uttered by other 
men, or by mythical gods, in earlier times? What are 
we to think if the facts be thus? 

Mr. Parsons, in Our Sun God, quotes the following 
passage from a Latin work by St. Augustine: 

Again, in that I said, “ This is in our time the Christian re- 
ligion, which to know and also follow is most sure and certain 
salvation,” it is affirmed in regard to this name, not in regard 
to the sacred thing itself to which the name belongs. For the 
sacred thing which is now called the Christian religion existed 
in ancient times, nor, indeed, was it absent from the beginning 
of the human race until the Christ Himself came in the flesh, 
whence the true religion, which already existed, came to be 
called “the Christian.” So when, after His resurrection and 
ascension to heaven, the Apostles began to preach and many be- 
lieved, it is thus written, “ The followers were first called Chris- 
tians at Antioch.” Therefore I said, “This is in our time the 


Christian religion,’ not because it did not exist in earlier times, 
but as having in later times received this particular name. 


From Eusebius, the great Christian historian, Mr. Par- 
sons quotes as follows: 
What is called the Christian religion is neither new nor 


strange, but—if it be lawful to testify as to the truth—was 
known to the ancients. 


Mr. Arthur Lillie, in Buddha and Buddhism, quotes 
M. Burnouf as saying: 


History and comparative mythology are teaching every day 
more plainly that creeds grow slowly up. None came into the 
world ready-made, and as if by magic. The origin of events is 
lost in the infinite. A great Indian poet has said: “The be- 


CHRISTIANITY BEFORE CHRIST t4I 


ginning of things evades us; their end evades us also; we see 
only the middle.” 

Before Darwin’s day it was considered absurd and im- 
pious to talk of ‘‘ pre-Adamite man,” and it will still, by 
many, be held absurd and impious to talk of “ Chris- 
tianity before Christ.” 

And yet the incidents of the life and death of Christ, 
the teachings of Christ and His Apostles, and the rites 
and mysteries of the Christian Church can all be paral- 
leled by similar incidents, ethics, and ceremonies em- 
bodied in religions long anterior to the birth of Jesus. 

Christ is said to have been God come down upon the 
earth. The idea of a god coming down upon the earth 
was quite an old and popular idea at the time when the 
Gospels were written. In the Old Testament God makes 
many visits to the earth; and the instances in the Greek, 
Roman, and Egyptian mythologies of gods coming 
amongst men and taking part in human affairs are well 
known. 

Christ is said to have been the Son of God. But the 
idea of a son-god is very much older than the Christian 
religion. | 

Christ is said to have been a redeemer, and to have 
descended from a line of kings. But the idea of a king’s 
son as a redeemer is very much older than the Christian 
religion. 

Christ is said to have been born of a virgin. But 
many heroes before Him were declared to have been 
born of virgins. 

Christ is said to have been born in a cave or stable 
while His parents were on a journey. But this also was 
an old legend long before the Christian religion. 

Christ is said to have been crucified. But very many 


142 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


kings, kings’ sons, son-gods, and heroes had been crucified 
ages before Him. 

Christ is said to have been a sacrifice offered up for the 
salvation of man. But thousands and thousands of men 
before Him had been slain as sacrifices for the general 
good, or as atonements for general or particular sins. 

Christ is said to have risen from the dead. But that 
had been said of other gods before Him. 

Christ is said to have ascended into Heaven. But this 
also was a very old idea. 

Christ is said to have worked miracles. But all the 
gods and saints of all the older religions were said to 
have worked miracles. 

Christ is said to have brought to men, direct from 
Heaven, a new message of salvation. But the message He 
brought was in nowise new. 

Christ. is said to have preached a new ethic of mercy 
and peace and good-will to all men. But this ethic had 
been preached centuries before His supposed advent. 

The Christians changed the Sabbath from Saturday to 
Sunday. Sun-day is the day of the Sun God. 

Christ’s birthday was fixed on the 2sth of December. 
But the 25th of December is the day of the Winter 
solstice —the birthday of Apollo, the Sun God —and 
had been from time immemorial the birthday of the sun 
gods in all religions. The Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, 
Pheenicians, and Teutonic races all kept the 25th of De- 
cember as the birthday of the Sun God. 

The Christians departed from the monotheism of the 
Jews, and made their God a Trinity. The Buddhists 
and the Egyptians had Holy Trinities long before. But 
whereas the Christian Trinity is unreasonable, the older 


idea of the Trinity was based upon a perfectly lucid and 
natural conception. 


CHRISTIANIDY BEFORE’ ORRIST 143 


Christ is supposed by many to have first laid down the 
“Golden Rule,” “ Do unto others as you would that they 
should do unto you.” But the Golden Rule was laid 
down centuries before the Christian era. 

Two of the most important of the utterances attributed 
to Christ are the Lord’s Prayer and the ‘ Sermon on the 
Mount.” But there is very strong evidence that the 
Lord’s Prayer was used before Christ’s time, and still 
stronger evidence that the Sermon on the Mount was a 
compilation, and was never uttered by Christ or any 
other preacher in the form in which it is given by St. 
Matthew. 

Christ is said to have been tempted of the Devil. But 
apart from the utter absurdity of the Devil’s tempting 
God by offering Him the sovereignty of the earth — 
when God had already the sovereignty of twenty mil- 
lions of suns — it is related of Buddha that he also was 
tempted of the Devil centuries before Christ was born. 

The idea that one man should die as a sacrifice to the 
gods on behalf of many, the idea that the god should be 
slain for the good of men, the idea that the blood of the 
human or animal “ scapegoat ” had power to purify or to 
save, the idea that a king or a king’s son should expiate 
the sins of a tribe by his death, and the idea that a god 
should offer himself as a sacrifice to himself in atone- 
ment for the sins of his people —all these were old ° 
ideas, and ideas well known to the founders of Chris- 
tianity. 

The resemblances of the legendary lives of Christ and 
Buddha are surprising: so also are the resemblances of 
forms and ethics of the ancient Buddhists and the early 
Christians. 

Mr. Arthur Lillie, in Buddha and Buddhism, makes the 
following quotation from M. Leonde Rosny: 


144 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


The astonishing points of contact between the popular legend 
of Buddha and that of Christ, the almost absolute similarity of 
the moral lessons given to the world between these two peerless 
teachers of the human race, the striking affinities between the 
customs of the Buddhists and the Essenes, of whom Christ must 
have been a disciple, suggest at once an Indian origin to Primi- 
tive Christianity. 

Mr. Lillie goes on to say that there was a sect of Es- 
senes in Palestine fifty years B.c., and that fifty years 
after the death of Christ there existed in Palestine a 
similar sect, from whom Christianity was derived. Mr. 
Lillie says of these sects: 

Each had two prominent rites: baptism, and what Tertullian 
calls the “oblation of bread.” Each had for officers, deacons, 
presbyters, ephemerents. Each sect had monks, nuns, celibacy, 
community of goods. Each interpreted the Old Testament in a 
mystical way — so mystical, in fact, that it enabled each to dis- 
cover that the bloody sacrifice of Mosaism was forbidden, not 
enjoined. The most minute likenesses have been pointed out 


between these two sects by all Catholic writers from Eusebius 
to the poet Racine. ... . Was there any connection between 


these two sects? It is difficult to conceive that there can be two 
answers to such a question. 

The resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity 
were accounted for by the Christian Fathers very simply. 
The Buddhists had been instructed by the Devil, and 
there was no more to be said. Later Christian scholars 
face the difficulty by declaring that the Buddhists copied 
from the Christians. 

Reminded that Buddha lived five hundred years before 
Christ, and that the Buddhist religion was in its prime 
two hundred years before Christ, the Christian apologist 
replies that, for all that, the Buddhist Scriptures are of 
comparatively late date. Let us see how the matter 
stands. 

The resemblances of the two religions are of two 
kinds. There is, first, the resemblance between the 
Christian life of Christ and the Indian life of Buddha; 


CHRISTIANITY BEFORE CHRIST 145 


and there is, secondly, the resemblance between the moral 
teachings of Christ and Buddha. 

Now, if the Indian Scriptures are of later date than 
the Gospels, it is just possible that the Buddhists may 
have copied incidents from the life of Christ. 

But it is perfectly certain that the charge of borrowing 
cannot be brought against Augustus Cesar, Plato, and 
the compilers of the mythologies of Egypt and Greece 
and Rome. And it is as certain that the Christians did 
borrow from the Jews as that the Jews borrowed from 
Babylon. But a little while ago all Christendom would 
have denied the indebtedness of Moses to King Sargon. 

Now, since the Christian ideas were anticipated by the 
Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans, and the Greeks, 
why should we suppose that they were copied by the 
Buddhists, whose religion was triumphant some centuries 
before Christ? 

And, again, while there is no reason to suppose that 
Christian missionaries in the early centuries of the era 
made any appreciable impression on India or China, 
there is good reason to suppose that the Buddhists, who 
were the first and most successful of all missionaries, 
reached Egypt and Persia and Palestine, and made their 
influence felt. 

I now turn to the statement of M. Burnouf, quoted by 
Mr. Lillie. M. Burnouf asserts that the Indian origin 
of Christianity is no longer contested: 

It has been placed in full light by the researches of scholars, 
and notably English scholars, and by the publication of the 
original texts. . . . In point of fact, for a long time folks 
had been struck with the resemblances — or, rather, the identical 
elements — contained in Christianity and Buddhism. Writers of 
the firmest faith and most sincere piety have admitted them. 
In the last century these analogies were set down to the Nestor- 
ians; but since then the science of Oriental chronology has come 


into being, and proved that Buddha is many years anterior to 
Nestorius and Jesus. Thus the Nestorian theory had to be given 


146 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


up But a thing may be posterior to another without proving 
derivation. So the problem remained unsolved until recently, 
when the pathway that Buddhism followed was traced step by 
step from India to Jerusalem. 

There was baptism before Christ, and before John the 
Baptist. There were gods, man-gods, son-gods, and 
saviours before Christ. There were Bibles, hymns, tem- 
ples, monasteries, priests, monks, missionaries, crosses, 
sacraments, and mysteries before Christ. 

Perhaps the most important sacrament of the Christian 
religion to-day is the Eucharist or “ Lord’s| Supper.” 
But this idea of the Eucharist, or the ceremonial eating of 
the god, has its roots far back in the prehistoric days of 
religious cannibalism. 

Prehistoric man believed that if he ate anything its 
virtue passed into his physical system. Therefore he be- 
gan by devouring his gods, body and bones. Later, man 
mended his manners so far as to substitute animal for 
human sacrifice; still later, he employed bread and wine 
as symbolical substitutes for flesh and blood. This is the 
origin and evolution of the strange and, to many of us, 
repulsive idea of eating the body and drinking the blood 
of Christ. 

Now, supposing these facts to be as I have stated them 
above, to what conclusion do they point? 

Bear in mind the statement of M. Burnouf, that re- 
ligions are built up slowly by a process of adaptation ; 
add that to the statements of Eusebius, the great Chris- 
tian historian, and of St. Augustine, the great Christian 
Father, that the Christian religion is no new thing, but 
was known to the ancients; and does it not. seem most 
reasonable to suppose that Christianity is a religion 
founded on ancient myths and legends, on ancient ethics, 


and on ancient allegorical mysteries and metaphysical 
errors? 


CHRISTIANITY BEFORE CHRIST 147 


To support those statements with adequate evidence I 
should have to compile a book four times as large as the 
present volume. As I have not room to state the case 
properly, I shall content myself with the recommendation 
of some books in which the reader may study the subject 
for himself. 

A list of these books I now subjoin: 

The Golden Bough. Frazer.’ Macmillan & Co. 

A Short History of Christianity. Robertson. Watts & Co. 

The Evolution of the Idea of God. Grant Allen. Ration- 

alist Press Association. 

Buddha and Buddhism. Lillie. Clark. 

Our Sun God. Parsons. Parsons. 

Christianity and Mythology. Robertson. Watts & Co. 
Pagan Christs. Robertson. Watts & Co. 

The Legend of Perseus. Hartland. Nutt. 

The Birth of Jesus. Soltau. Black. 

The above are all scholarly and important books, and 
should be generally known. 

For reasons given above I claim, with regard to the 
divinity and Resurrection of Jesus Christ: 

That outside the New Testament there is no evi- 
dence of any value to show that Christ ever lived, that 
He ever taught, that He ever rose from the dead. 

That the evidence of the New Testament is anony- 
mous, is contradictory, is loaded with myths and mira- 
cles. 

That the Gospels do not contain a word of proof by 
any eye-witness as to the fact that Christ was really 
dead; nor the statement of any eye-witness that He 
was seen to return to life and quit His tomb. 

That Paul, who preached the Resurrection of Christ, 
did not see Christ dead, did not see Him arise from 
the dead, did not see Him ascend into Heaven. 

That Paul nowhere supports the Gospel accounts of 
Christ’s life and teaching. 


148 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


That the Gospels are of mixed and doubtful origin, 
that they show signs of interpolation and tampering, 
and that they have been selected from a number of 
other Gospels, all of which were once accepted as 
genuine. 

And that, while there is no real evidence of life, or 
the teachings, or the Resurrection of Christ, there is 
a great deal of evidence to show that the Gospels were 
founded upon anterior legends and older ethics. 

But Christian apologists offer other reasons why we 
should accept the stories of the miraculous birth and 
Resurrection of Christ as true. Let us examine these 
reasons, and see what they amount to. 


OTHER EVIDENCES OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY 


ARCHDEACON WILSON gives two reasons for accepting 
the doctrines of Christ’s divinity and Resurrection as 
true. The first of these reasons is, the success of the 
Christian religion; the second is, the evolution of the 
Christlike type of character. | 

If the success of the Christian religion proves that 
Christ was God, what does the success of the Buddhist 
religion prove? What does the success of the Moham- 
medan religion prove? 

Was Buddha God? Was Mahomet God? 

The archdeacon does not believe in any miracles but 
those of his own religion. But if the spread of a faith 
proves its miracles to be true, what can be said about the 
spread of the Buddhist and Mohammedan religions? 

Islam spread faster and farther than Christianity. So 
did Buddhism. To-day the numbers of these religions 
are somewhat as follow: 

Buddhist: 450 millions. 

Christians: 375 millions, of which only 180 millions 
are Protestants. 

Hindus: 200 millions. 

Mohammedans: 160 millions. 

It will be seen that the Buddhist religion is older than 
Christianity, and has more followers. What does that 
prove? 

But as to the reasons for the great growth of these two 
religions I will say more by and by. At present I merely 
repeat that the Buddhist faith owed a great deal to the 


149 


150 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


fact that King Asoka made it the State religion of a 
great kingdom, and that Christianity owes a great deal 
to the fact that Constantine adopted it as the State re- 
ligion of the Roman Empire. 

We come now to the archdeacon’s second argument: 
that the divinity of Christ is proved by the evolution of 
the Christlike type of character. 

And here the archdeacon makes a most surprising 
statement, for he says that type of character was un- 
known on this globe until Christ came. 

Then how are we to account for King Asoka? 

The King Asoka of the Rock Edicts was as spiritual, 
as gentle, as pure, and as loving as the Christ of the Gos- 
pels. 

The King Asoka of the Rock Edicts was wiser, more 
tolerant, more humane than the Christ of the Gospels. 

Nowhere did Christ or the Fathers of His Church for- 
bid slavery; nowhere did they forbid religious intoler- 
ance; nowhere did they forbid cruelty to animals. 

The type of character displayed by the rock inscriptions 
of King Asoka was a higher and sweeter type than the 
type of character displayed by the Jesus of the Gospels. 

Does this prove that King Asoka or his teacher, Bud- 
dha, was divine? Does it prove that the Buddhist faith 
is the only true faith? I shall treat this question more 
fully in another chapter. 


Another Christian argument is the claim that the faith- 
fulness of the Christian martyrs proves Christianity to be 
true. A most amazing argument. The fact that a man 
dies for a faith does not prove the faith to be true; it 
proves that he believes it to be true —a very different 
thing. 

The Jews denied the Christian faith, and died for their 


EVIDENCES OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY 151 


own. Does that prove that Christianity was not true? 
Did the Protestant martyrs prove Protestantism true? 
Then the Catholic martyrs proved the reverse. 

The Christians martyred or murdered millions, many 
millions, of innocent men and women. Does that prove 
that Christ was divine? No: it only proves that Chris- 
tians could be fanatical, intolerant, bloody, and cruel. 

And now, will you ponder these words of Arthur Lillie, 
M. A., the author of Buddha and Buddhism? Speaking 
of the astonishing success of the Buddhist missionaries, 
Mr. Lillie says: 


_ This success was effected by moral means alone, for Buddhism 
is the one religion guiltless of coercion. 


Christians are always boasting of the wonderful good 
works wrought by their religion. They are silent about 
the horrors, infamies, and shames of which it has been 


guilty. 

Buddhism is the only religion with no blood upon its 
hands. I submit another very significant quotation from 
Mr. Lillie: 


I will write down a few of the achievements of this inactive 
Buddha and the army of Bhikshus that he directed: 

1. The most formidable priestly tyranny that the world had 
ever seen crumbled away before his attack, and the followers of 
Buddha were paramount in India for a thousand years. 

2. The institution of caste was assailed and overthrown. 

3. Polygamy was for the first time assailed and overturned. 

4. Woman, from being considered a chattel and a beast of 
burden, was for the first time considered man’s equal, and al- 
lowed to develop her spiritual life. 

5. All bloodshed, whether with the knife of the priest or the 
sword of the conqueror, was rigidly forbidden. 

6. Also, for the first time in the religious history of mankind, 
the awakening of the spiritual life of the individual was sub- 
stituted for religion by body corporate. 

7, The principle of religious propagandism was for the first 
time introduced with its two great instruments, the missionary 
and the preacher. 


152 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


To that list we may add that Buddhism abolished 
slavery and religious persecution; taught temperance, 
chastity, and humanity ; and invented the higher morality 
and the idea of the brotherhood of the entire human race. 

What does that prove? It seems to me to prove that 
Archdeacon Wilson is mistaken. 


THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION 


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ae ans OD 


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oe Ay, : 
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WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 


Wuat is Christianity? When I began to discuss religion 
in the Clarion I thought I knew what Christianity was. 
I thought it was the religion I had been taught as a boy 
in Church of England and Congregationalist Sunday 
schools. But since then I have read many books, and 
pamphlets, and sermons and articles intended to explain 
what Christianity is, and I begin to think there are as 
many kinds of Christianity as there are Christians. The 
differences are numerous and profound: they are aston- 
ishing. That must be a strange revelation of God which 
can be so differently interpreted. 

Well, I cannot describe all these variants, nor can I 
reduce them to a common denominator. The most I can 
pretend to offer is a selection of some few doctrines to 
which all or many Christians would subscribe. 

1. All Christians believe in a Supreme Being, called 
God, who created all beings. They all believe that He 
is a good and loving God, and our Heavenly Father. 

2. Most Christians believe in Free Will. 

3. All Christians believe that Man has sinned and does 
sin against God. 

4. All Christians believe that Jesus Christ is in some 
way necessary to Man’s “ salvation,” and that without 
Christ Man will be “ lost.” 

But when we ask for the meaning of the terms “ salva- 
tion” and “lost” the Christians give conflicting or di- 
vergent answers. 

5. All Christians believe in the immortality of the soul. 


155 


156 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


And I think they all, or nearly all, believe in some kind 
of future punishment or reward. 

6. Most Christians believe that Christ was God. 

7. Most Christians believe that after crucifixion Christ 
rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven. 

8. Most Christians believe, or think they believe, in the 
efficacy of prayer. 

9. Most Christians believe in a Devil; but he is a great 
many different kinds of a Devil. 

Of these beliefs I should say: 

1. As to God. If there is no God, or if God is not a 
loving Heavenly Father, who answers prayer, Christian- 
ity as a religion cannot stand. 

I do not pretend to say whether there is or is not a 
God, but I deny that there is a loving Heavenly Father 
who answers prayer. 

2 and 3. If there is no such thing as Free Will man 
could not sin against God, and Christianity as a religion 
will not stand. 

I deny the existence of Free Will, and possibility of 
man’s sinning against God. 

4. If Jesus Christ is not necessary to Man’s “ salva- 
tion,” Christianity as a religion will not stand. 

I deny that Christ is necessary to man’s salvation from 
‘Hell or from Sin. 

5. I do not assert or deny the immortality of the soul. 
I know nothing about the soul, and no man is or ever 
was able to tell me more than I know. 

Of the remaining four doctrines I will speak in due 
course. 

I spoke just now of the religion I was taught in my 
boyhood, some forty years ago. As that religion seems 


to be still very popular I will try to express it as briefly 
as I can. 


———————— 


a eee 


WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 157 


Adam was the first man, and the father of the human 
race. He was created by God, in the likeness of God: 
that is to say, he was made “ perfect.” 

But, being tempted of the Devil, Adam sinned: he fell. 
God was so angry with Adam for his sin that He con- 
demned him and all his descendants for five thousand 
years to a Hell of everlasting fire. 

After consigning all the generations of men for five 
thousand years to horrible torment in Hell, God sent His 
Son, Jesus Christ, down on earth to die, and to go to 
Hell for three days, as an atonement for the sin of Adam. 

After Christ rose from the dead all who believed on 
Him and were baptized would go to Heaven. All who 
did not believe on Him, or were not baptized, would go 
to Hell, and burn forever in a lake of fire. 

That is what we were taught in our youth; and that is 
what millions of Christians believe to-day. That is the 
old religion of the Fall, of ‘Inherited Sin,” of ‘“ Uni- 
versal Damnation,” and of atonement by the blood of 
Christ. 

There is a new religion now, which shuts out Adam 


. and Eve, and the serpent, and the hell of fire, but retains 


the “ Fall,” the “ Sin against God,” and the “ Atonement 
by Christ.” 

But in the new Atonement, as I understand, or try to 
understand it, Christ is said to be God Himself, come 
down to win back to Himself Man, who had estranged 
himself from God, or else God (as Christ) died to save 
man, not from Hell, but from Sin. 

All these theories, old and new, seem to me impos- 
sible, 

I will deal first, in a short way, with the new theories 
of the Atonement. 

If Christ died to save Man from sin, how is it that 


158 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


nineteen centuries after His death the world is full of 
sin? 

If God (the All-powerful God, who loves us better than 
an earthly father loves his children) wished to forgive us 
the sin Adam committed ages before we were born, why 
did He not forgive us without dying, or causing His Son 
to die, on a cross? 

If Christ is essential to a good life on earth, how is it 
that many who believe in Him lead bad lives, while many 
of the best men and women of this and former ages 
either never heard of Christ or did not follow Him? 

As to the theory that Christ (or God) died to win 
back Man to Himself, it does not harmonize with the 
facts. 

Man never did estrange himself from God. All his- 
tory shows that Man has persistently and anxiously 
sought for God, and has served Him, according to his 
light, with a blind devotion, even to death and crime. 

Finally, Man never did, and never could, sin against 
God. For Man is what God made him; could only act 
as God enabled him, or constructed him to act, and there- 
fore was not responsible for his act, and could not sin 
against God. 

If God is responsible for Man’s existence, God is re- 
sponsible for Man’s act. Therefore Man cannot sin 
against God. 

But I shall deal more fully with the ne of Free 
Will, and of the need for Christ as our Saviour, in an- 
other part of this book. 


Let us now turn to the old idea of the Fall and the 
Atonement. 

First, as to Adam and the Fall and inherited sin. 
Evolution, historical research, and scientific criticism 


WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 159 


have disposed of Adam. Adam was a myth. Hardly 
any educated Christians now regard him as an historic 
person. 

But — no Adam, no Fall; no Fall, no Atonement; no 
Atonement, no Saviour. Accepting Evolution, how can 
we believe in a Fall? When did man fall? Was it 
before he ceased to be a monkey, or after? Was it when 
he was a tree man, or later? Was it in the Stone Age, 
or the Bronze Age, or in the Age of Iron? 

There never was any “Fall.” Evolution proves a 
long, slow rise. 

And if there never was a Fall, why should there be any 
Atonement ? 

Christians accepting the theory of evolution have to 
believe that God allowed the sun to form out of the 
nebula, and the earth to form from the sun. That He 
allowed man to develop slowly from the speck of proto- 
plasm in the sea. That at some period of man’s gradual 
evolution from the brute, God found man guilty of some 
sin, and cursed him. That some thousands of years later 
God sent His only Son down upon the earth to save man 
from Hell. 

But Evolution shows man to be, even now, an imper- 
fect creature, an unfinished work, a building still under- 
going alterations, an animal still evolving. 

Whereas the doctrines of “the Fall” and the Atone- 
ment assume that he was from the first a finished crea- 
ture, and responsible to God for his actions. 

This old doctrine of the Fall, and the Curse, and the 
Atonement is against reason as well as against science. 

The universe is boundless. We know it to contain 
millions of suns, and suppose it to contain millions of 
millions of suns. Our sun is but a speck in the universe. 
- Our earth is but a speck in the solar system. 


160 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Are we to believe that the God who created all this 
boundless universe got so angry with the children of the 
apes that He condemned them all to Hell for two score 
centuries, and then could only appease His rage by send- 
ing His own Son to be nailed upon a cross? Do you 
believe that? Can you believe it? 

No. As I said before, if the theory of evolution be 
true, there was nothing to atone for, and nobody to atone. 
Man has never sinned against God. In fact, the whole 
of this old Christian doctrine is a mass of error. There 
was no creation. There was no Fall. There was no 
Atonement. There was no Adam, and no Behe and no 
Eden, and no Devil, and no Hell. 

If God is allewertuh He had.power to make man by 
nature incapable of sin. But if, having the power to 
make man incapable of sin, God made man so weak as 
o “ fall,” then it was God who sinned against man, and 
not man against God. 

For if I had power to train a son of mine to righteous- 
ness, and I trained him to wickedness, should I not sin 
against my son? 

Or if a man had power to create a child of virtue and 
intellect, but chose rather to create a child who was by 
nature a criminal or an idiot, would not that man sin 
against his child? 

And do you believe that “our Father in Heaven, our 
All-powerful God, who is Love,” would first create man 
fallible, and then punish him for falling? 

And if He did so create and so punish man, could you 
call that just or merciful? 

And if God is our “ maker,” who but He is responsible 
for our make-up? 

And if He alone is responsible, how can man have 
sinned against God? 


WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY? 161 


I maintain that besides being unhistorical and unrea- 
sonable, the old doctrine of the Atonement is unjust and 
immoral. 

The doctrine of the Atonement is not just nor moral, 
because it implies that man should not be punished or 
rewarded according to his own merits or demerit, but 
according to the merit of another. 

Is it just, or is it moral, to make the good suffer for 
the bad? Is it just or moral to forgive one man his 
sin because another is sinless? Such a doctrine — the 
doctrine of Salvation for Christ’s sake, and after a life of 
crime — holds out inducements to sin. 

Repentance is only good because it is the precursor 
of reform. But no repentance can merit pardon, nor 
atone for wrong. If, having done wrong, I repent, and 
afterwards do right, that is good. But to be sorry and 
not to reform is not good. 

If I do wrong, my repentance will not cancel that 
wrong. An act performed is performed for ever. If I 
cut a man’s hand off, I may repent, and he may pardon ~ 
me. But neither my remorse nor his forgiveness will 
make the hand grow again. And if the hand could grow 
again, the wrong I did would still have been done. 

That is a stern morality, but it is moral. Your doc- 
trine of pardon “ for Christ’s sake” is not moral. God 
acts unjustly when He pardons for Christ’s sake. Christ 
acts unjustly when He asks that pardon be granted for 
His sake. If one man injures another, the prerogative of 
pardon should belong to the injured man. It is for him 
who suffers to forgive. 

If your son injure your daughter, the pardon must 
come from her. It would not be just for you to say: 
“He has wronged you, and has made no atonement, but 
I forgive him,” Nor would it be just for you to forgive 


162 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


him because another son of yours was willing to be pun- 
ished in his stead. Nor would it be just for that other 
son to come forward, and say to you, and not to his in- 
jured sister, “ Father, forgive him for my sake.” 

He who wrongs a fellow-creature, wrongs himself as 
well, and wrongs both for all eternity. Let this awful 
thought keep us just. It is more moral and more correc- 
tive than any trust in the vicarious atonement of a 
Saviour. 

Christ’s Atonement, or any other person’s atonement, 
cannot justly be accepted. For the fact that Christ is 
willing to suffer for another man’s sin only counts to the 
merit of Christ, and does not in any way diminish the 
offense of the sinner. If 1 am bad, does it make my 
offense the less that another man is so much better? 

If a just man had two servants, and one of them did 
wrong, and if the other offered to endure a flogging in 
expiation of his fault, what would the just man do? 

To flog John for the fault of James would be to punish 
John for being better than James. To forgive James 
because John had been unjustly flogged would be to as- 
sert that because John was good, and because the master 
had acted unjustly, James the guilty deserved to be for- 
given. 

This is not only contrary to reason and to justice: it is 
also very false sentiment. | 


a) 


| ‘DETERMINISM 


i a iy orn t | 


Birk lence ny: 
ee ea 


Hatt 


; 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 


I HAVE said several times that Man could not and cannot 
sin against God. 

This is the theory of Determinism, and 1 will now ex- 
plain it. 

If God is responsible for Man’s existence, God is re- 
sponsible for Man’s acts. 

The Christian says God is our Maker. God made 
Man. 

Who is responsible for the quality or powers of a thing 
that is made? 

The thing that is made cannot be responsible, for it did 
not make itself. But the maker is responsible, for he 
made it. 

As Man did not make himself, and had neither act, nor 
voice, nor suggestion, nor choice in the creation of his 
own nature, Man cannot be held answerable for the qual- 
ities or powers of his nature, and therefore cannot be 
held responsible for his acts. 

If God made Man, God is responsible for the qualities 
and powers of Man’s nature, and therefore God is re- 
sponsible for Man’s acts. 

Christian theology is built upon the sandy foundation 
of the doctrine of Free Will. The Christian theory may 
be thus expressed: | 

God gave Man a will to choose. Man chose evil, 
therefore Man is wicked, and deserves punishment. 

The Christian says God gave Man a will. The will, 

165 


166 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


then, came from God, and was not made nor selected by 
man. 

And this Will, the Christian says, is the “power to 
choose.” 

Then, this “ power to choose’ 
of God’s gift. 

Man has only one will, therefore he has only the 
“ power of choice.” Therefore he has no power of choice 
but the power God gave him. 

Then, Man can only choose by means of that power 
which God gave him, and he cannot choose by any other 
means. 

Then, if Man chooses evil, he chooses evil by means 
of the power of choice God gave him. 

Then, if that power of choice given to him by God 
makes for evil, it follows that Man must choose evil, 
since he has no other power of choice. 

Then, the only power of choice God gave man is a 
power that will choose evil. 

Then, man is unable to choose good, because his only 
power of choice will choose evil. 

Then, as man did not make nor select his power of 
choice, man cannot be blamed if that power chooses evil. 

Then, the blame must be God’s, who gave Man a power 
of choice that would choose evil. 

Then, Man cannot sin against God, for Man can only 
use the power God gave him, and can only use that power 
in the way in which that power will work. 

The word “ will” is a misleading word. What is will? 
Will is not a faculty, like the faculty of speech or touch. 
The word will is a symbol, and means the balance be- 
tween two motives or desires. 

Will is like the action of balance in a pair of scales. 
It is the weights in the scales that decide the balance. 


, 


is of God’s making and 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 167 


So it is the motives in the mind that decide the will. 
When a man chooses between two acts we say that he 
exercises his will’; but the fact is, that one motive 
weighs down the other, and causes the balance of the 
mind to lean to the weightier reason. There is no such 
thing as an exterior will, outside the man’s brain, to push 
one scale down with a finger. Will is abstract, not con- 
crete. 

A man always “wills” in favor of the weightier mo- 
tive. If he loves the sense of intoxication more than he 
loves his self-respect, he will drink. If the reasons in 
favor of sobriety seem to him to outweigh the reasons in 
favor of drink, he will keep sober. 

Will, then, is a symbol for the balance of motives. 
Motives are born of the brain. Therefore will depends 
upon the action of the brain. 

God made the brain; therefore God is responsible for 
the action of the brain; therefore God is responsible for 
the action of the will. 

Therefore Man is not responsible for the action of the 
will. Therefore Man cannot sin against God. 

Christians speak of the will as if it were a kind of 
separate soul, a “little cherub who sits up aloft” and 
gives the man his course. 

Let us accept this idea of the will. Let us suppose 
that a separate soul or faculty called the Will governs the 
mind. That means that the “little cherub” governs the 
man. 

Can the man be justly blamed for the acts of the 
cherub? 

No. Man did not make the cherub, did not select the 
cherub, and is obliged to obey the cherub. 

God made the cherub, and gave him command of the 
man. Therefore God alone is responsible for the acts 


99 


168 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the man performs in obedience to the cherub’s orders. 

If God put a beggar on horseback, would the horse be 
blamable for galloping to Monte Carlo? The horse must 
obey the rider. The rider was made by God. How, | 
then, can God blame the horse? 

If God put a “will” on Adam’s back, and the will 
followed the beckoning finger of Eve, whose fault was 
that? 

The old Christian doctrine was that Adam was made 
perfect, and that he fell. (How could the “ perfect” 
fall?) 

Why did Adam fall? He fell because the woman 
tempted him. 

Then, Adam was not strong enough to resist the 
woman. 

Then, the woman had power to overcome Adam’s will. 
As the Christian would express it, ‘‘ Eve had the stronger 
will.” 

Who made Adam? God made him. Who made Eve? 
God made her. Who made the Serpent? God made the 
Serpent. 

Then, if God made Adam weak, and Eve seductive, 
and the Serpent subtle, was that Adam’s fault or God’s? 

Did Adam choose that Eve should have a stronger 
will than he, or that the Serpent should have a stronger 
will than Eve? No. God fixed all those things. 

God is all-powerful. He could have made Adam 
strong enough to resist Eve. He could have made Eve 
strong enough to resist the Serpent. He need not have 
made the Serpent at all. 

God is all-knowing. Therefore, when He made Adam 
and Eve and the Serpent He knew that Adam and Eve’ 
“ust fall. And if God knew they must fall, how could 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 169 


Adam help falling, and how could he justly be blamed 
for doing what he must do? 

God made a bridge — built it Himself, of His own 
materials, to His own design, and knew what the bearing 
strain of the bridge was. 

If, then, God put upon the bridge a weight equal to 
double the bearing strain, how could God justly blame 
the bridge for falling? 

The doctrine of Free Will implies that God knowingly 
made the Serpent subtle, Eve seductive, and Adam weak, 
and then damned the whole human race because a bridge 
He had built to fall did not succeed in standing. 

Such a theory is ridiculous; but upon it depends the 
entire fabric of Christian theology. 

For if Man is not responsible for his acts, and there- 
fore cannot sin against God, there is no foundation for 
the doctrines of the Fall, the Sin, the Curse, or the Atone- 
ment. 

If Man cannot sin against God, and if God is responsi- 
ble for all Man’s acts, the Old Testament is not true, the 
New Testament is not True, the Christian religion is not 
true. 

And if you consider the numerous crimes and blun- 
ders of the Christian Church, you will always find that 
they grew out of the theory of Free Will, and the doc- 
trines of Man’s sin against God, and Man’s responsibility 
and “ wickedness.” 

St. Paul said, “ As in Adam all men fell, so in Christ 
are all made whole.” If Adam did not fall St. Paul was 
mistaken. 

Christ is reported to have prayed on the cross, 


“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they 
g0,2 | 


170 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


That looks as if Jesus knew that the men were not re- 
sponsible for their acts, and did not know any better. 
But if they knew not what they did, why should God be 
asked to forgive them? 

But let us go over the Determinist theory again, for it 
is most important. 

If God is responsible for Man’s existence, God is re- 
sponsible for Man’s acts. 

The Christians say Man sinned, and they talk about 
his freedom of choice. But they say God made Man, as 
He made all things. 

Now, if God is all-knowing, He knew before He made 
Man what Man would do. He knew that Man could do 
nothing but what God had enabled him to do. That he 
could do nothing but what he was fore-ordained by God 
to do. 

If God is all-powerful, He need not have made man at 
all. Or He could have made a man who would be strong 
enough to resist temptation. Or he could have made a 
man who was incapable of evil. 

If the All-powerful God made a man, knowing that man 
would succumb to the test to which God meant to subject 
him, surely God could not justly blame the man for being 
no better than God had made him. 

If God had never made Man, then Man never could 
have succumbed to temptation. God made Man of His 
own divine choice, and made him to His own divine de- 
sire. 

How, then, could God blame Man for anything Man 
did? 

God was responsible for Man’s existence, for God 
made him. If God had not made him, Man could never 
have been, and could never have acted. Therefore all 
that Man did was the result of God’s creation of Man. 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 171 


All Man’s acts were the effects of which his creation 
was the cause: and God was responsible for the cause, 
and therefore God was responsible for the effects. 

Man did not make himself. Man could not, before he 
existed, have asked God to make him. Man could not 
advise nor control God so as to influence his own nature. 
Man could only be what God caused him to be, and do 
what God enabled or compelled him to do. 

Man might justly say to God: “I did not ask to be 
created. I did not ask to be sent into this world. I had 
no power to select or mold my nature. I am what you 
made me. I am where you put me. You knew when 
You made me how I should act. If You wished me to 
act otherwise, why did You not make me differently ? 
If I have displeased You, I was fore-ordained to displease 
You. I was fore-ordained by You to be and to do what 
I am and have done. Is it my fault that You fore-or- 
dained me to be and to do thus? ” 

Christians say a man has a will to choose. So he has. 
But that is only saying that one human thought will out- 
weigh another. A man thinks with his brain: his brain 
was made by God. 

A tall man can reach higher than a short man. Tt is 
not the fault of the short man that he is outreached: he 
did not fix his own height. 

It is the same with the will. A man has a will to 
jump. He can jump over a five-barred gate; but he can- 
not jump over a cathedral. 

So with his will in moral matters. He has a will to 
resist temptation, but though he may clear a small tempta- 
tion, he may fail at a large one. 

The actions of a man’s will are as mathematically 


fixed at his birth as are the motions of a planet in its 
orbit. 


172 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


God, who made the man and the planet, is responsible 
for the actions of both. 

As the natural forces created by God regulate the in- 
fluences of Venus and Mars upon the Earth, so must the 
natural forces created by God have regulated the influ- 
ences of Eve and the Serpent on Adam. 

Adam was no more blameworthy for failing to resist 
the influence of Eve than the Earth is blameworthy for 
deviating in its course round the Sun in obedience to the 
influences of Venus and Mars. 

Without the act of God there could have been no 
Adam, and therefore no Fall. God, whose act is re- 
sponsible for Adam’s existence, is responsible for the 
Fall. 

If God is responsible for Man’s existence, God is re- 
sponsible for all Man’s acts. 

If a boy brought a dog into the house and teased it 
until it bit him, would not his parents ask the boy, “ Why 
did you bring the dog in at all?” 

But if the boy had trained the dog to bite, and knew 
that it would bite if it were teased, and if the boy brought 
the dog in and teased it until it bit him, would the par- 
ents blame the dog? 

And if a magician, like one of those at the court of 
Pharaoh, deliberately made an adder out of the dust, 
knowing the adder would bite, and then played with the 
adder until it bit some spectator, would the injured man 
blame the magician or the adder? 

How, then, could God blame Man for the Fall? 

But you may ask me, with surprise, as so many have 
asked me with surprise, “Do you really mean that no 
man is, under any circumstances, to be blamed for any- 
thing he may say or do?” , 

And I shall answer you that I do seriously mean that 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 173 


no man can, under any circumstances, be justly blamed 
for anything he may say or do. That is one of my deep- 
est convictions, and I shall try very hard to prove that it 
is just. 

But you may say, as many have said: “If no man 
can be justly blamed for anything he says or does, there 
is an end of all law and order, and society is impossible.” 

And I shall answer you: “ No, on the contrary, there 
is a beginning of law and order, and a chance that so- 
ciety may become civilized.” : 

For it does not follow that because we may not blame 
a man we may not condemn his acts. Nor that because 
we do not blame him we are bound to allow him to do 
all manner of mischief. 

Several critics have indignantly exclaimed that I make 
no difference between good men and bad, that I lump 
Torquemada, Lucrezia Borgia, Fenelon, and Marcus 
Aurelius together, and condone the most awful crimes. 

That is a mistake. I regard Lucrezia Borgia as a 
homicidal maniac, and Torquemada as a religious maniac. 
I do not blame such men and women. But I should not 
allow them to do harm. 

I believe that nearly all crimes, vices, cruelties, and 
other evil acts are due to ignorance or to mental disease. 
I do not hate the man who calls me an infidel, a liar, a 
blasphemer, or a quack. I know that he is ignorant, or 
foolish, or ill-bred, or vicious, and I am sorry for him. 

Socrates, as reported by Xenophon, put my casein a 
nutshell. When a friend complained to Socrates that a 
man whom he had saluted had not saluted him in return, 
the father of philosophy replied: “It is an odd thing 
that if you had met a man ill-conditioned in body you 
would not have been angry; but to have met a man 
rudely disposed in mind provokes you.” 


174, GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


This is sound philosophy, I think. If we pity a man 
with a twist in his spine, why should we not pity the 
man with a twist in his brain. If we pity a man with 
a stiff wrist, why not the man with a stiff pride? If 
we pity a man with a weak heart, why not the man 
with the weak will? If we do not blame a man for one 
kind of defect, why blame him for another? 

But it does not follow that because we neither hate 
nor blame a criminal we should allow him to commit 
crime. } 

We do not blame a rattlesnake, nor a shark. These 
creatures only fulfill their natures. The shark who de- 
vours a baby is no more sinful than the lady who eats 
a shrimp. We do not blame the maniac who burns a 
house down and brains a policeman, nor the mad dog 
who bites a minor poet. But, none the less, we take 
steps to defend ourselves against snakes, sharks, lunatics, 
and mad dogs. 

The Clarion does not hate a cruel sweater, nor a tyran- 
nous landlord, nor a shuffling Minister of State, nor a 
hypocritical politician: it pities such poor creatures. Yet 
the Clariow opposes sweating and tyranny and hypocrisy, 
and does its best to defeat and to destroy them. 

If a tiger be hungry he naturally seeks food. I do 
not blame the tiger; but if he endeavored to make his 
dinner off our business manager, and I had a gun, I 
should shoot the tiger. 

We do not hate nor blame the blight that destroys our 
roses and our vines. The blight is doing what we do: 
he is trying to live. But we destroy the blight to pre- 
serve our roses and our grapes. 

So we do not blame an incendiary. But we are quite 
justified in protecting life and property. Dangerous 
men must be restrained. In cases where they attempt 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 175 


to kill and maim innocent and useful citizens, as, for 
instance, by dynamite outrages, they must, in the last 
resort, be killed. 

“But,” you may say, “the dynamiter knows it is 
wrong to wreck a street and murder inoffensive strangers, 
and yet he does it. Is not that free will? Is he not 
blameworthy ? ” 

And I answer that when a man does wrong he does it 
because he knows no better, or because he is naturally 
vicious. 

And I hold that in neither case is he to blame: for he 
did not make his nature, nor did he make the influences 
which have operated on that nature. 

Man is a creature of Heredity and Environment. He 
is by Heredity what his ancestors have made him (or 
what God has made him). Up to the moment of his 
birth he has had nothing to do with the formation of 
his character. As Professor Tyndall says, “that was 
done for him, and not by him.” From the moment of 
his birth he is what his inherited nature, and the influ- 
ences into which he has been, sent without his consent, 
have made him. 

An omniscient being — like God — who knew exactly 
what a man’s nature would be at birth, and exactly the 
nature of the influences to which he would be exposed 
after his birth, could predict every act and word of that 
man’s life. 

Given a particular nature; given particular influences, 
the result will be as mathematically inevitable as the 
speed and orbit of a planet. 

Man is what heredity (or God) and environment make 
him. Heredity gives him his nature. That comes from 
his ancestors. Environment modifies his nature; envi- 
ronment consists of the operation of forces external to 


176 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


his nature. No man can select his ancestors; no man 
can select his environment. His ancestors make his 
nature; other men, and circumstances, modify his nature. 

Ask any horse-breeder why he breeds from the best 
horses, and not from the worst. He will tell you, be- 
cause good horses are not bred from bad ones. 

Ask any father why he would prefer that his son 
should mix with good companions rather than with bad 
companions. He will tell you that evil communications 
corrupt good manners, and pitch defiles. 

Heredity decides how a man shall be bred; environ- 
ment regulates what he shall learn. 

One man is a critic, another is a poet. Each is what 
heredity and environment have made him. Neither is 
responsible for his heredity nor for his environment. 

If the critic repents his evil deeds, it is because some- 
thing has happened to awake his remorse. Someone 
has told him of the error of his ways. That adviser is 
part of his environment. 

If the poet takes to writing musical comedies, it is 
because some evil influence has corrupted him. That 
evil influence is part of his environment. 

Neither of these men is culpable for what he has done, 
With nobler heredity, or happier environment, both 
might have been journalists; with baser heredity, or 
more vicious environment, either might have been a 
millionaire, a socialist, or even a member of parliament. 

We are all creatures of heredity and environment. It 
is Fate, and not his own merit, that has kept George 
Bernard Shaw out of a shovel hat and gaiters, and con- 
demned some Right Honorable Gentlemen to manage 
State Departments instead of planting cabbages. 

The child born of healthy, moral, and _ intellectual 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 177 


parents has a better start in life than the child born of 
unhealthy, immoral, and unintellectual parents. 

The child who has the misfortune to be born in the 
vitiated atmosphere of a ducal palace is at a great dis- 
advantage in comparison with the child happily born amid 
the innocent and respectable surroundings of a semi- 
detached villa in Brixton. 

What chance, then, has a drunkard’s baby born in a 
thieves’ den, and dragged up amid the ignorance and 
squalor of the slums? 

Environment is very powerful for good or evil. Had 
Shakespeare been born in the Cannibal Islands he would 
never have written As You Like It; had Torquemada 
been born a Buddhist he never would have taken to 
roasting heretics. | 

But this, you may say, is sheer Fatalism. Well! It 
seems to me to be truth, and philosophy, and sweet 
charity. 

And now I will try to show the difference between 
this Determinism, which some think must prove so 
maleficent, and the Christian doctrine of Free Will, which 
many consider so beneficent. 

Let us take a flagrant instance of wrong-doing. Sup- 
pose some person to persist in playing “ Dolly Grey ” on 
the euphonium, or to contract a baneful habit of reciting 
“ Curfew shall not Ring” at evening parties, the Christian 
believer in Free Will would call him a bad man, and 
would say he ought to be punished. 

The philosophic Determinist would denounce the 
offender’s conduct, but would not denounce the offender. 

We Determinists do not denounce men; we denounce 
acts. We do not blame men; we try to teach them. If 
they are not teachable we restrain them. 


178 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


You will admit that our method is different from the 
accepted method. I shall try to convince you that it is 
also materially better than the accepted, or Christian, 
method. 

Let us suppose two concrete cases: (1) Bill Sikes beats 
his wife; (2) Lord Rackrent evicts his tenants. 

Let us first think what would be the orthodox method 
of dealing with these two cases. 

What would be the orthodox method? The parson 
and the man in the street would say Bill Sikes was a 
bad man, and that he ought to be punished. 

The Determinist would say that Bill Sikes had com- 
mitted a crime, and that he ought to be restrained, and 
taught better. 

You may tell me there seems to be very little difference 
in the practical results of the two methods. But that 
is, because we have not followed the two methods far 
enough. 

If you will allow me to follow the two methods further 
you will, I hope, agree with me that their results will not 
be identical, but that our results will be immeasurably 
better. 

For the orthodox method is based upon the erroneous 
dogma that Bill Sikes had a free will to choose between. 
right and wrong, and having chosen to do wrong, he is 
a bad man, and ought to be punished. 

But the Determinist bases his method upon the philo- 
sophical theory that Bill Sikes is what heredity and 
environment have made him; and that he is not respon- 
sible for his heredity, which he did not choose, nor for 
his environment, which he did not make. 

Still, you may think the difference is not effectively 
great. But it is. For the Christian would blame Bill © 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 179 


Sikes, and no one but Bill Sikes. But the Determinist 
would not blame Sikes at all; he would blame his envi- 
ronment. 

Is not that a material difference? But follow it out 
to its logical results. The Christian, blaming only Bill 
Sikes, because he had a “ free will,” would punish Sikes, 
and perhaps try to convert Sikes; and there his effort 
would logically end. 

The Determinist would say: “If this man Sikes has 
been reared in a slum, has not been educated, nor morally 
trained, has been exposed to all kinds of temptation, 
the fault is that of the social system which has made 
such ignorance, and vice, and degradation possible.” 

That is one considerable difference between the re- 
sults of a good religion and a bad one. The Christian 
condemns the man—who is a victim of evil social con- 

ditions. The Determinist condemns the evil conditions. 
It is the difference between the methods of sending 
individual sufferers from diphtheria to the hospital and 
the method of condemning the drains. 

But you may cynically remind me that nothing will 
come of the Determinists’ protest against the evil social 
conditions. Perhaps not. Let us waive that question 
for a moment, and consider our second case. 

Lord Rackrent evicts his tenants. The orthodox 
method is well known. It goes no further than the 
denunciation of the peer, and the raising of a subscrip- 
tion (generally inadequate) for the sufferers. 

The Determinist method is different. The Deter- 
minist would say: ‘This peer is what heredity and 
environment have made him. We cannot blame him 
for being what he is. We can only blame his environ- 
ment, There must be something wrong with a social 


Ti 


180 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


system which permits one idle peer to ruin hundreds of 
industrious producers. The evil social system should 
be amended, or evictions will continue.” 

The Determinist conclusion would be followed by the 
usual inadequate subscription. 

And now we will go back to the point we passed. You 
may say, in the case of Sikes and the peer, that the logic 
of the Determinist is sound, but ineffective: nothing 
comes of it. 

I admit that nothing comes of it, and I am now going 
to tell you why nothing comes of it. 

The Determinist cannot put his wisdom into action, 
because he is in a minority. 

So long as Christians have an overwhelming majority 
who will not touch the drains, diphtheria must continue. 

So long as the universal verdict condemns the victim 
of a bad system, and helps to keep the bad system in 
full working order, so long will evil flourish and victims 
suffer. 

If you wish to realize the immense superiority of the 
Determinist principles over the Christian religion, you 
have only to imagine what would happen if the Deter- 
minists had a majority as overwhelming as the majority 
of the Christians now hold. 

For whereas the Christian theory of free will and 
personal responsibility results in established ignorance 
and injustice, with no visible remedies beyond personal 
denunciation, the prison, and a few coals and blankets, 
the Determinist method would result in the abolition of 
lords and burglars, of slums and palaces, of caste and 
snobbery. There would be no ignorance and no poverty 
left in the world. 

That is because the Determinist understands human 
nature, and the Christian does not. It is because the 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 181 


Determinist understands morality, and the Christian does 
not. 

For the Determinist looks for the cause of wrong- 
doing in the environment of the wrong-doer. While the 
Christian puts all the wrongs which society perpetrates 
against the individual, and all the wrongs which the 
individual perpetrates against his fellows down to an 
imaginary “ free will.” 

Some Free-Willers are fond of crying out: “Once 
admit that men are not to be blamed for their actions, 
and all morality and all improvement will cease.” But 
that is a mistake. As I have indicated above, a good 
many evils now rife would cease, because then we should 
attack the evils, and not the victims of the evils. But 
it is absurd to suppose that we do not detest cholera 
because we do not detest cholera patients, or that we 
should cease to hate wrong because we ceased to blame 
wrong-doers. 

Admit the Determinist theory, and all would be taught 
to do well, and most would take kindly to the lesson. 
Because the fact that environment is so powerful for 
evil suggests that it is powerful for good. If man is 
what he is made, it behooves a nation which desires and 
prizes good men to be very earnest and careful in its 
methods of making them. 

I believe that I am what heredity and environment 
made me. But I know that I can make myself better 
or worse if I try. I know that because I have learnt 
it, and the learning has been part of my environment. 

My claim, as a Determinist, is that it is not so good 
to punish an offender as to improve his environment. 
It is good of the Christians to open schools and to found 
charities. But as a Determinist I am bound to say that 
there ought to be no such things in the world as poverty 


182 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


and ignorance, and one of the contributory causes to 
ignorance and poverty is the Christian doctrine of free 
will. 

Take away from a man all that God gave him, and 
there will be nothing of him left. 

Take away from a man all that heredity and environ- 
ment have given him, and there will be nothing left. 

Man is what he is by the act of God, or the results of | 
heredity and environment. In either case he is not to 
blame. 

In one case the result is due to the action of his 
ancestors and society, in the other to the act of God. 

Therefore a man is not responsible for his actions, 
and cannot sin against God. 

If God ts responsible for Man’s existence, God is re- 
sponsible for Man’s acts. 

A religion built upon the doctrine of Free Will and 
human responsibility to God is built upon a misconcep- 
tion and must fall. 

Christianity is a fabric of impossibilities erected upon 
a foundation of error. 

Perhaps, since I find many get confused on the sub- 
ject of Free Will from their consciousness of continually 
exercising the “power of choice,” I had better say a 
few words here on that subject. 

You say you have power to choose between two 
courses. So you have, but that power is limited and 
controlled by heredity and environment. 

If you have to choose between a showy costume and 
a plain one you will choose the one you like best, and 
you will like best the one which your nature (heredity) 
and your training (environment) will lead you to like 
best. 

You think your will is free. But it is not. You may 


CAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD? 183 


think you have power to drown yourself; but you have 
not. Your love of life and your sense of duty are too 
strong for you. 

You might think I have power to leave the Clarion 
and start an anti-Socialist paper. But I know I have 
not that power. My nature (heredity) and my training 
and habit (environment) are too strong for me. 

If you knew a lady was going to choose between a 
red dress and a gray one, and if you knew the lady very 
well, you could guess her choice before she made it. 

If you knew an honorable man was to be offered a 
bribe to do a dishonorable act, you would feel sure he 
would refuse it. 

If you knew a toper was to be offered as much free 
whisky as he could drink, you would be sure he would 
not come home sober. 

If you knew the nature and the environment of a man 
thoroughly well, and the circumstances (all the circum- 
stances) surrounding a choice of action to be presented 
to him, and if you were clever enough to work such a 
difficult problem, you could forecast his choice before 
he made it, as surely as in case of the lady, the toper, 
and the honorable man above mentioned. 

You have power to choose, then, but you can only 
choose as your heredity and environment compel you to 
choose. And you do not select your own heredity nor 
your Own environment. 


CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES 


CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES 


CHRISTIAN apologists make some daring claims on be- 
half of their religion. The truth of Christianity is 
proved, they say, by its endurance and by its power; 
the beneficence of its results testifies to the divinity of 
its origin. 

These claims command wide acceptance, for the simple 
reason that those who deny them cannot get a hearing. 

The Christians have virtual command of all the 
churches, universities, and schools. They have the 
countenance and support of the Thrones, Parliaments, 
Cabinets, and aristocracies of the world, and they have 
the nominal support of the World’s Newpaper Press. 
They have behind them the traditions of eighteen cen- 
turies. They have formidable allies in the shape of 
whole schools of philosophy and whole libraries of elo- 
quence and learning. They have the zealous service 
and unswerving credence of millions of honest and worthy 
citizens ; and they are defended by solid ramparts of prej- 
udice, and sentiment, and obstinate old custom. 

The odds against the Rationalists are tremendous. To 
challenge the claims of Christianity is easy: to get the 
challenge accepted is very hard. Rationalists’ books and 
papers are boycotted. The Christians will not listen, 
will not reason, will not, if they can prevent it, allow a 
hostile voice to be heard. Thus, from sheer lack of 
knowledge, the public accept the Christian apologist’s 
assertions as demonstrated truth. 

And the Christians claim this immunity from attack 


187 


188 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


as a triumph of their arms, and a further proof of the 
truth of their religion. Religion has been attacked be- 
fore, they cry, and where now are its assailants? And 
the answer must be, that many of its assailants are in 
their graves, but that some of them are yet alive, and 
there are more to follow. But the combat is very un- 
equal, If the Rationalists could for only a few years 
have the support of the Crowns, Parliaments, Aris- 
tocracies, Universities, Schools, and Newspapers of the 
world; if they could preach Science and Reason twice 
every Sunday from a hundred thousand pulpits, per- 
haps the Christians would have less cause for boasting. 

But as things are, we “Infidels”? must cease to sigh 
for whirlwinds, and do the best we can with the bellows. 

So: the Christians claim that their religion has done 
wonders for the world; a claim disputed by the Ration- 
alists, 

Now, when we consider what Christianity has done, 
we should take account of the evil as well as the good. 
But this the Christians are unwilling to allow. 

Christians declare that the divine origin and truth of 
their religion are proved by its beneficent results. 

But Christianity has done evil as well as good. Mr. 
G. K. Chesterton, while defending Christianity in the 
Daily News, said: 

Christianity has committed crimes so monstrous, that the sun 
might sicken at them in heaven. 

And no one can refute that statement. 

But Christians evade the dilemma. When the evil 
works of their religion are cited, they reply that those 
evils were wrought by false Christianity. that they were 
contrary to the teachings of Christ, and so were not the 
deeds of Christians at all. 


CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES 1&9 


The Christian Commonwealth, in advancing the above 
plea as to real and false Christianity, instanced the dif- 
ference between Astrology and Astronomy, and said: 


We fear Mr. Blatchford, if he has any sense of consistency, 
must, when he has finished his tirade against Christianity, turn 
his artillery on Greenwich Observatory, and proclaim the As- 
tronomer Royal a scientific quack, on account of the follies of 
star-gazers in the past. 


But that parallel is not a true one. Let us suppose 
that the follies of astrology and the discoveries of as- 


_ tronomy were bound up in one book, and called the 


Word of God. Let us suppose we were told that the 
whole book — facts, reason, folly, and falsehoods — was 
divinely inspired and literally true. Let us suppose that 
any one who denied the old crude errors of astrology 
was persecuted as a heretic. Let us suppose that any 
one denying the theory of Laplace, or the theory of 
Copernicus, would be reviled as an “ Infidel.” Let us 
suppose that the Astronomer Royal claimed infallibility, 
not only in matters astronomical, but also in politics 
and morals. Let us suppose that for a thousand years 
the astrological-astronomical holy government had whip- 
ped, imprisoned, tortured, burnt, hanged, and damned 
for everlasting every man, woman, or child who dared 
to tell it any new truth, and that some of the noblest 
men of genius of all ages had been roasted or impaled 
alive for being rude to the equator. Let us suppose 
that millions of pounds were stil] annually spent on 
casting nativities, and that thousands of expensive 
observatories were still maintained at the public cost 
for astrological rites. Let us suppose all this, and then 
I should say it would be quite consistent and quite 
logical for me to turn my verbal artillery on Greenwich 
Observatory. 


190 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Would the Christians listen to such a plea in any other 
case? Had Socialists been guilty of tyranny, of war, 
of massacre, of torture, of blind opposition to the truth 
of science, of cruel persecution of the finest human 
spirits for fifteen centuries, can any one believe for a 
moment that Christians would heed the excuse that the 
founders of Socialism had not preached the atrocious 
policy which the established Socialist bodies and the 
recognized Socialist leaders had put in force persistently 
during all those hundreds of cruel years? 

Would the Christian hearken to such a defense from 
a Socialist, or from a Mohammedan? Would a Liberal 
accept it from a Tory? Would a Roman Catholic admit 
it from a Jew? 

Neither is it right to claim credit for the good deeds, 
and to avoid responsibility for the evil deeds of the 
divine religion. 

And the fact must be insisted upon, that all religion, 
in its very nature, makes for persecution and oppression. 
It is the assumption that it is wicked to doubt the ac- 
cepted faith, and the presumption that one religion ought 
to revenge or justify its God upon another religion, 
that leads to all the pious crimes the world groans and 
bleeds for, 

This is seen in the Russian outrages on the Jews, and 
in the Moslem outrages upon the Macedonians to-day. 
It is religious fanaticism that lights and fans and feeds 
the fire. Were all the people in the world of one, or 
of no, religion, to-day there would be no Jews murdered 
by Christians and no Christians murdered by Moslems 
in the East. The cause of the atrocities would be gone. 
The cause is religion. 

Why is religious intolerance so much more fierce and 
bitter than political intolerance? Just because it is re- 


CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES IQI 


ligious. It is the supernatural element that breeds the 
fury. It is the feeling that their religion is divine and 
all other religions wicked ; it is the belief that it is a holy 
thing to be “jealous for the Lord,” that drives men 
into blind rage and ruthless savagery. ) 

We have to regard two things at once, then: the good 
influences of Christ’s ethics, and the evil deeds of those 
who profess to be His followers. 

As to what some Christians call “ the Christianity of 
Christ,” I suggest that the teachings of Christ were im- 
perfect and inadequate. That they contain some moral 
lessons I admit. But some of the finest and most gen- 
erally admired of those lessons do not appear to have 
been spoken by Christ, and for the rest there is nothing 
in His ethics that had not been taught by men before, 
and little that has not been extended or improved by 
men since His era. 

The New Testament, considered as a moral and spir- 
itual guide for mankind, is unsatisfactory. For it is 
based upon an erroneous estimate of human nature and 
of God. 

I am sure that it would be easy to compile a book more 
suitable to the needs of Man. TI think itis. a ergs 
blunder to assume that all the genius, all the experience, 
all the discovery and research; all the poetry, morality, 
and science of the entire human race during the past 
eighteen hundred years have failed to add to or improve 
the knowledge and morality of the First Century. 

Mixed with much that is questionable or erroneous, 
the New Testament contains some truth and beauty. 
Amid the perpetration of much bloodshed and tyranny, 
Christianity has certainly achieved some good. I should 
not like to say of any religion that all its works were 
evil. But Christ’s message, as we have it in the Gospels, 


192 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


is neither clear nor sufficing, and has been obscured, and 
at times almost obliterated, by the pomps and casuistries 
of the schools and churches. And just as it is difficult 
to discover the actual Jesus among the conflicting Gospel 
stories of His works and words, so it is almost impos- 
sible to discover the genuine authentic Christian religion 
amid the swarm of more or less antagonistic sects who 
confound the general ear with their discordant testi- 
monies. 


~~ a 


CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILIZATION 


It is a common mistake of apologists to set down all 
general improvements and signs of improvements to the 
credit of the particular religion or political theory they 
defend. Every good Liberal knows that. bad harvests 
are due to Tory government. Every good Tory knows 
that his Party alone is to thank for the glorious cer- 
tainties that Britannia rules the waves, that an English- 
man’s house is his castle, and that journeymen tailors 
earn fourpence an hour more than they were paid in the 
thirteenth century. 

Cobdenites ascribe every known or imagined improve- 
ment in commerce, and the condition of the masses, to 
Free Trade. Things are better than they were fifty 
years ago: Free Trade was adopted fifty years ago. 
Ergo — there you are. 

There is not a word about the development of rail- 
ways and steam-ships, about improved machines; about 
telegraphs, the cheap post and telephones; about edu- 
cation and better facilities of travel; about the Factory 
Acts and Truck Acts; about cheap books and news- 
papers: and who so base to whisper of Trade Unions, 
and Agitators, and County Councils. 

So it is with the Christian religion. We are more 
moral, more civilized, more humane, the Christians tell 
us, than any human beings ever were before us. And 
we owe this to the Christian religion, and to no other 
thing under Heaven. 

But for Christianity we never should have had the 


193 


194 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


House of Peers, the Times newspaper, the Underground 
Railway, the Adventures of Captain Kettle, the Fabian 
Society, or Sir Thomas Lipton. 

The ancient Greek philosophers, the Buddhist mis- 
sionaries, the Northern invaders, the Roman laws and 
Roman roads, the inventions of printing, of steam and of 
railways, the learning of the Arabs, the discoveries of 
Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Herschel, Hunter, Laplace, 
Bacon, Descartes, Spencer, Columbus, Karl Marx, Adam 
Smith; the reforms and heroisms and artistic genius of 
Wilberforce, Howard, King Asoka, Washington, Crom- 
well, Howard, Stephen Langton, Oliver Cromwell, Sir 
Thomas More, Rabelais, and Shakespeare; the wars and 
travels and commerce of eighteen hundred years, the 
Dutch Republic, the French Revolution, and the Jameson 
Raid have had nothing to do with the growth of civiliza- 
tion in Europe and America. 

And so to-day: science, invention, education, politics, 
economic conditions, literature and art, the ancient 
Greeks and Oriental Wisdom, and the world’s press 
count for nothing in the molding of the nations. 
Everything worth having comes from the pulpit, the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, and the War Cry. 

It is not to our scientists, our statesmen, our econo- 
mists, our authors, inventors, and scholars that we must 
look for counsel and reform: such secular aid is useless, 
and we shall be wise to rely entirely upon His holiness 
the Pope and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

In the England of the Middle Ages, when Christianity 
was paramount, there was a cruel penal code, there was 
slavery, there were barbarous forest laws, there were 
ruthless oppression and insolent robbery of the poor, 
there were black ignorance and a terror of superstition, 
there were murderous laws against witchcraft, there was 


ee 


CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION — 195 


savage persecution of the Jews, there were “trial by 
wager of battle,’ and “ question ” of prisoners by torture. 

Many of these horrors endured until quite recent times. 
Why did Christianity, with its spiritual and temporal 
power, permit such things to be? 

Did Christianity abolish them? No. Christianity 
nearly always opposed reform. The Church was the 
enemy of popular freedom, the enemy of popular educa- 
tion; the friend of superstition and tyranny, and the rob- 
ber baron. 

Those horrors are no more. But Christianity did not 
abolish them. They were abolished by the gradual 
spread of humane feelings and the light of knowledge; 
just as similar iniquities were abolished by the spread 
of humane doctrines in India, centuries before the birth 
of Christ. | 

Organized and authoritative religion the world over 
makes for ignorance, for poverty and superstition. In 
Russia, in Italy, in Spain, in Turkey, where the Churches 
are powerful and the authority is tense, the condition 
of the people is lamentable. In America, England, and 
Germany, where the authority of the Church is less rigid 
and the religion is nearer rationalism, the people are 
more prosperous, more intelligent, and less superstitious. 
So, again, the rule of the English Church seems less 
beneficial than that of the more rational and free Non- 
conformist. The worst found and worst taught class in 
England is that of the agricultural laborers, who have 
been for centuries left entirely in the hands of the Es- 
tablished Church. | 

It may be urged that the French, although Catholics, 
are as intelligent and as prosperous as any nation in the 
world. But the French are a clever people, and since 
their revolution have not taken their religion so seriously. 


196 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Probably there are more Skeptics and Rationalists in 
France than in any other country. 

My point is that the prosperity and happiness of a na- 
tion do not depend upon the form of religion they pro- 
fess, but upon their native energy and intelligence and 
the level of freedom and knowledge to which they have 
attained. 

It is because organized and authoritative religion op- 
poses education and liberty that we find the most re- 
ligious peoples the most backward. And this is a strange 
commentary upon the claim of the Christians, that their 
religion is the root from which the civilization and the 
refinement of the world have sprung. 


a ee eee 


CHRISTIANITY AND ETHICS 


CHRISTIANITY, we are told, inaugurated the religion of 
humanity and human brotherhood. But the Buddhists 
taught a religion of humanity and universal brotherhood 
before the Christian era; and not only taught the religion, 
but put it into practice, which the Christians never suc- 
ceeded in doing, and cannot do to-day. 

And, moreover, the Buddhists did not spread their re- 
ligion of humanity and brotherhood by means of the 
sword, and the rack, and the thumb-screw, and the fag- 
got; and the Buddhists liberated the slave, and extended 
their loving-kindness to the brute creation. 

The Buddhists do not depend for the records of their 
morality on books. Their testimony is written upon the 
rocks. No argument can explain away the rock edicts of 
King Asoka. 

King Asoka was one of the greatest Oriental kings. 
He ruled over a vast and wealthy nation. He was con- 
verted to Buddhism, and made it the State religion, as 
Constantine made Christianity the State religion of 
Rome. In the year 251 B.C.,, King Asoka inscribed his 
earliest rock edict. The other.edicts from which I shall 
quote were all cut more than two centuries before our 
era. The inscription of the Rupuath Rock has the 
words: “Two hundred and fifty years have elapsed 
since the departure of the teacher.” Now, Buddha died 
in the fifth century before Christ. 

The Dhauli Edict of King Asoka contains the follow- 
ing: 

197 


198 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Much longing after the things [of this life] is a disobedience, 
I again declare; not less so is the laborious ambition of do- 
minion by a prince who would be a propitiator of Heaven. 
Confess, and believe in God, who is the worthy object of 
obedience. 


From the Tenth Rock Edict: 


Earthly glory brings little profit, but, on the contrary, produces 
a loss of virtue. To toil for heaven is difficult to peasant and 
to prince, unless by a supreme effort he gives up all. 


This is from the Fourteenth Edict: 


Piyadasi, the friend of the Devas, values alone the harvest of 
the next world. For this alone has this inscription been chis- 
eled, that our sons and our grandsons should make no new 
conquests. Let them not think that conquests by the sword 
merit the name of conquests. Let them see their ruin, confusion, 
and violence. True conquests alone are the conquests of 
Dharma. 


Rock Edict No. 1 has: 


Formerly in the great refectory and temple of King Piyadasi, 
the friend of the Devas, many hundred thousand animals were 
daily sacrificed for the sake of food meat, . . . but now the 
joyful chorus resounds again and again that henceforward not 
a single animal shall be put to death. 


The Second Edict has: 


In committing the least possible harm, in doing abundance of 
good, in the practice of pity, love, truth, and likewise purity 
of life, religion consists. 


The Ninth Edict has: 


Not superstitious rites, but kindness to slaves and servants, 
reverence towards venerable persons, self-control with respect 
to living creatures, . . . these and similar virtuous actions 
are the rites which ought indeed to be performed. 


The Eighth Edict has: 


The acts and the practice of religion, to wit, sympathy, charity, 
truthfulness, purity, gentleness, kindness. 


The Sixth Edict has: 


I consider the welfare of all people as something for which I 
must work. 


a 


CHRISTIANITY AND ETHICS 199 


PAD haae Rae: 


If a man is subject to slavery and ill-treatment, from this 
moment he shall be delivered by the king from this and other 
captivity. Many men in this country suffer in captivity, there- 
fore the stiipa containing the commands of the king has been 
a great want. 

Is it reasonable to suppose that a people possessing so 
much wisdom, mercy, and purity two centuries before 
Christ was born could need to-borrow from the Christian 
ethics ? 

Mr. Lillie says of King Asoka: 

He antedates Wilberforce in the matter of slavery. He ante- 
dates Howard in his humanity towards prisoners. He antedates 
Tolstoy in his desire to turn the sword into a pruning-hook. 
He antedates Rousseau, St. Martin, Fichte in their wish to make 
interior religion the all in all. 

King Asoka abolished slavery, denounced war, taught 
spiritual religion and purity of life, founded hospitals, 
forbade blood sacrifices, and inculcated religious tolera- 
tion, two centuries before the birth of Christ. 

Centuries before King Asoka the Buddhists sent out 
missionaries all over the world. 

Which religion was the borrower from the other — 
Buddhism or Christianity ? 

Two centuries before Christ, King Asoka had cut upon 
the rocks these words: 

I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ with 
me in creed, that they, following after my example, may with me 
attain unto eternal salvation. And whoso doeth this is blessed 
of the inhabitants of this world; and in the next world endless 
moral merit resulteth from such religious charity.— Edict XI. 

How many centuries did it take the Christians to rise 
to that level of wisdom and charity? How many Chris- 
tians have reached it yet? 

But the altruistic idea is very much older than Buddha, 
for it existed among forms of life very much earlier and 


200 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


lower than the human, and has, indeed, been a powerful 
factor in evolution. 

Speaking of “The Golden Rule” in his Confessions 
of Faith of a Man of Science, Haeckel says: 


In the human family this maxim has always been accepted 
self-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance derived 
from our animal ancestors. It had already found a place among 
the herds of apes and other social mammals; in a similar man- 
ner, but with wider scope, it was already present in the most 
primitive communities and among the hordes of the least ad- 
vanced savages. Brotherly love— mutual support, succor, pro- 
tection, and the like—had already made its appearance among 
gregarious animals as a social duty; for without it the continued 
existence of such societies is impossible. Although at a later 
period, in the case of man, these moral foundations of society 
came to be much more highly developed, their oldest prehistoric 
source, as Darwin has shown, is to be sought in the social in- 
stincts of animals. Among the higher vertebrates (dogs, horses, 
elephants, etc.), as among the higher articulates (ants, bees, 
termites, etc.), also, the development of social relations and 
duties is the indispensable condition of their living together in 
orderly societies. Such societies have for man also been the 
most important instrument of intellectual and moral progress. 


It is not to revelation that we owe the ideal of human 
brotherhood, but to evolution. It is because altruism is 
better than selfishness that it has survived. It is be- 
cause love is stronger and sweeter than greed that its in- 
fluence has deepened and spread. From the love of the 
animal for its mate, from the love of parents for their 
young, sprang the ties of kindred and the loyalty of 
friendship; and these in time developed into tribal, and 
thence into national patriotism. And these stages of 
altruistic evolution may be seen among the brutes. It 
remained for Man to take the grand step of embracing 
all humanity as one brotherhood and one nation. 

But the root idea of fraternity and mutual loyalty was 
not planted by any priest or prophet. For countless 
ages universal brotherhood has existed amongst the 


CHRISTIANITY AND ETHICS 201 


bison, the swallow, and the deer, in a perfection to which 
humanity has not yet attained. 

For a fuller account of this animal origin of fraternity 
I recommend the reader to two excellent books, The 
Martyrdom of Man, by Winwood Reade (Kegan Paul), 
and Mutual Aid, by Prince Kropotkin (Heinemann). 

But the Christian claims that Christ taught a new gos- 
pel of love, and mercy, and goodwill to men. That is 
a great mistake. Christ did not originate one single new 
ethic. 

The Golden Rule was old. The Lord’s Prayer was 
old. The Sermon on the Mount was old. With the 
latter I will deal briefly. For a fuller statement, please 
see the R.P.A. sixpenny edition of Huxley’s Lectures 
and Essays, and Christianity and Mythology, by J. M. 
Robertson. 

Shortly stated, Huxley argument was to the following 
effect : ; 

That Mark’s Gospel is the oldest of the Synoptic Gos- 
pels, and that Mark’s Gospel does not contain, nor even 
mention, the Sermon on the Mount. That Luke gives 
no Sermon on the Mount, but gives what may be called 
a “Sermon on the Plain.” That Luke’s sermon differs 
materially from the sermon given by Matthew. That 
the Matthew version contains one hundred and seven 
verses, and the Luke version twenty-nine verses. 

Huxley’s conclusion is as follows: 

“ Matthew,” having a cento of sayings attributed — 
rightly or wrongly it is impossible to say—to Jesus 
among his materials, thought they were, or might be, 
records of continuous discourse, and put them in a 
place he thought likeliest. Ancient historians of the 
highest character saw no harm in composing long 


202 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


speeches which never were spoken, and putting them 
into the mouths of statesmen and warriors; and I pre- 
sume that whoever is represented by ‘“ Matthew,” 
would have been grievously astonished to find that 
any one objected to his following the example of the 
best models accessible to him. 

But since Huxley wrote those words more evidence has 
been produced. From the Old Testament, from the 
Talmud, and from the recently discovered Teaching of 
the Twelve Apostles (a pre-Christian work), the origins 
of the Sermon on the Mount have been fully traced. 

Agnostic criticism now takes an attitude towards this 
sermon which may be thus expressed: 

I. The sermon never was preached at all. It is a 
written compilation. 

2. The story of the mount is a myth. The name of 
the mount is not given. It is not reasonable to sup- 
pose that Jesus would lead a multitude up a mountain 
to speak to them for a few minutes. The mountain 
is an old sun-myth of the Sun God on his hill, and the 
twelve apostles are another sun-myth, and represent 
the signs of the Zodiac. 

3. There is nothing in the alleged sermon that was 
new at the time of its alleged utterance. 

Of course, it may be claimed that the arrangement of 
old texts in a new form constitutes a kind of originality ; 
as one might say that he who took flowers from a score 
of gardens and arranged them into one bouquet produced 
a new effect of harmony and beauty. But this credit 
must be given to the compilers of the gospels’ version of 
the Sermon on the Mount. 

Let us take a few pre-Christian morals. 

Sextus said: “ What you wish your neighbors to be 
to you, such be also to them.” 


a 


CHRISTIANITY AND ETHICS 203 


Isocrates said: “Act towards others as you desire 
others to act towards you.” 

Lao-tze said: “The good I would meet with good- 
ness, the not-good I would also meet with goodness.” 

Buddha said: ‘ Hatred does not cease by hatred at 
any time; hatred ceases by love.’ 

And again: “Let us live happily, not hating those 
who hate us.” 

In the Talmud occur the following Jewish anticipa- 
tions of Christian morals: 


Love peace, and seek it at any price. 

Remember that it is better to be persecuted than persecutor. 

To whom does God pardon sins? —To him who himself for- 
gives injuries. 

Those who undergo injuries without returning it, those who 
hear themselves vilified and do not reply, who have no motive 
but love, who accept evils with joy; it is of them that the 
prophet speaks when he says, the friends of God shall shine 
one day as the sun in all his splendor. 

It is not the wicked we should hate, but wickedness. 

Be like God, compassionate, merciful. 

Judge not your neighbor when you have not been in his place. 

He who charitably judges his neighbor shall be charitably 
judged by God. 

Do not unto others that which it would be disagreeable to you 
to suffer yourself, that is the main part of the law; all the rest 
is only commentary. 


From the Old Testament come such morals as: 


Let him give his cheek to him that smiteth him (Sam. iii. 30). 

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Lev. xix. 18). 

He that is of a lowly spirit shall obtain honor (Prov. xxix. 
73h he meek shall inherit the land (Ps. xxxvii. 11). 

History and ancient literature prove that Christianity 
did not bring a new moral code, did not inaugurate peace, 
nor purity, nor universal brotherhood, did not originate 
the ideal human character: but checked civilization, re- 
sisted all enlightenment, and deluged the earth with in- 
nocent blood in the endeavor to compel mankind to drink 


old moral wine out of new theological bottles. 


204 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Three of the greatest blessings men can have are free- 
dom, liberty of conscience, and knowledge. These bless- 
ings Christianity has not given, but has opposed. 

It is largely to the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the 
Arabs and the Indians, to patriots, heroes, statesmen, 
scholars, scientists, travelers, inventors, discoverers, au- 
thors, poets, philanthropists, rebels, skeptics, and reform- 
ers that the world owes such advance as it has made to- 
wards liberty and happiness and universal loving-kind- 
ness. 

This advance has been made in defiance of Christian 
envy, hatred, and malice, and in defiance of Christian 
tyranny and persecution. After fighting fiercely to de- 
feat the advance of humanity, after slaying and cursing 
the noblest sons and daughters of the ages, the defeated 
Christians now claim to have conquered the fields they 
- have lost, to have bestowed the benefits they have de- 
nied, to have evolved the civilization they have maimed 
and damned. 

As a Democrat, a Humanist, and a Socialist I join my 
voice to the indignant chorus which denies those claims. 


THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY 


WE are told that the divine origin and truth of Chris- 
tianity are proved by the marvelous success of that re- 
ligion. But it seems to me that the reverse is proved by 
its failure. 

Christianity owed its magnificent Opportunities (which 
it has wasted) to several accidental circumstances, Just 
as the rise of Buddhism was made possible by the act of 
King Asoka in adopting it as the State religion of his 
vast Indian kingdom, was the rise of Christianity made 
possible by the act of the Emperor Constantine in adopt- 
ing it as the State religion of the far-stretched Roman 
Empire. 

Christianity spread rapidly because the Roman Empire 
was ripe for a new religion. It conquered because it 
threw in its lot with the ruling powers. It throve be- 
cause it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven in one 
hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The 
older religions, gray in their senility, had no such bribe or 
threat to conjure with, 

Christianity overcame opposition by murdering or 
cursing all who resisted its advance. It exterminated 
skepticism by stifling knowledge, and putting a merciless 
veto on free thought and free speech, and by rewarding 
philosophers and discoverers with a faggot and the chain. 
It held its power for centuries by force of hell-fire, and 
ignorance, and the sword ; and the greatest of these was 
ignorance. 

Nor must it be supposed that the persecution and the 

205 


206 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


’ 


slaughter of “ Heretics” and “ Infidels” was the excep- 
tion. It was the rule. Motley, the American historian, 
states that Torquemada, during eighteen years’ command 
of the Inquisition, burnt more than ten thousand people 
alive, and punished nearly a hundred thousand with 
infamy, confiscation of property, or perpetual imprison- 
ment. 

To be a Jew, a Moslem, a Lutheran, a “wizard,” a 
skeptic, a heretic was to merit death and torture. One 
order of Philip of Spain condemned to death as “ here- 
tics” the entire population of the Netherlands. 
Wherever the Christian religion was successful the mar- 
tyrs’ fires burned, and the devilish instruments of torture 
were in use. For some twelve centuries the Holy 
Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day 
the term “free thought” is a term of reproach. The 
shadow of the fanatical priest, that half-demented cow- 
ard, sneak and assassin, still blights us. Although that 
holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous casuis- 
tries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and 
whips of steel, has been defeated by the humanity he 
scorned and the knowledge he feared, yet he has left a 
taint behind him. It is still held that it ought to be an 
unpleasant thing to be an Infidel. 

And, yes, there were other factors in the “ success ” of 
Christianity. The story of the herald angels, the wise 
men from the east, the manger, the child God, the cross, 
and the gospel of mercy and atonement, and of universal 
brotherhood and peace amongst the earthly children of a 
Heavenly Father, whose attribute was love — this story 
possessed a certain homely beauty and_ sentimental 
glamour which won the allegiance of many golden-hearted 
and sweet-souled men and women. These lovely natures 
assimilated from the chaotic welter of beauty and ashes 


aD 


THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY 207 


called the Christian religion all that was pure, and re- 
jected all that was foul. It was the light of such sover- 
eign souls as Joan of Arc and Francis of Assisi that 
saved Christianity from darkness and the pit; and how 
much does that religion owe to the genius of Wyclif and 
Tyndale, of Milton and Handel, of Mozart and Thomas 
a Kempis, of Michael Angelo and Rafael, and the com- 
pilers of the Book of Common Prayér? 

There are good men and good women by millions in 
the Christian ranks to-day, and it is their virtue, and 
their zeal, and their illumination of its better qualities, 
and charitable and loyal shelter of its follies and its 
crimes, that keep the Christian religion still alive. 

Christianity has been for fifteen hundred years the 
religion of the brilliant, brave, and strenuous races in 
the world. And what has it accomplished? And how 
does it stand to-day. 

Is Christianity the rule of life in America and Europe? 
Are the masses of people who accept it peaceful, virtu- 
ous, chaste, spiritually minded, prosperous, happy? Are 
their national laws based on its ethics? Are their inter- 
national politics guided by the “ Sermon on the Mount’? 
Are their noblest and most Christlike men and women 
most revered and honored? Is the Christian religion 
loved and respected by those outside its pale? Are Lon- 
don and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Berlin, 
Vienna, Brussels, and Rome centers of holiness and of 
Sweetness and light? From Glasgow to Johannesburg, 
from Bombay to San Francisco is God or Mammon 
king? 

If a tree should be known by its fruit, the Christian 
religion has small right to boast of its “ success.” 

But the Christian will say, “This is not Christianity, 
but its caricature.” Where, then, is the saving grace, 


208 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the compelling power, of this divine religion, whach, 
planted by God Himself, is found after nineteen cen- 
turies to yield nothing but leaves? 

After all these sad ages of heroistr. and crime, of war 
and massacre, of preaching and praying, of biustering 
and trimming; after all this prodigal waste of blood and 
tears, and labor and treasure, and genius and sacrifice, 
we have nothing better to show for Christianity than 
European and American Society to-day. 

And this ghastly heart-breaking failure proves the 
Christian religion to be the Divine Revelation of God! 


THE PROPHECIES 


ANOTHER alleged proof of the divine verity of the Chris- 
tian religion is the Prophecies. Hundreds of books — 
perhaps I might say thousands of books —have been 
written upon these prophecies. Wonderful books, won- 
derful prophecies, wonderful religion, wonderful people. 

If religious folks did not think by moonlight those 
books on the prophecies would never have been written. 
There are the prophecies of Christ’s coming which are 
pointed out in the Old Testament. That the Jews had 
many prophecies of a Jewish Messiah is certain. But 
these are indefinite. There is not one of them which 
unmistakably applies to Jesus Christ; and the Jews, who 
should surely understand their own prophets and their 
own Scriptures, deny that Christ was the Messiah whose 
coming the Scriptures foretold. 

Then, we have the explicit prophecy of Christ Himself 
as to His second coming. That prophecy at least is 
definite; and that has never been fulfilled. 

For Christ declared in the plainest and most solemn 
manner that He would return from Heaven with power 
and glory within the lifetime of those to whom He spoke: 

Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all 
these things be fulfilled. 

These prophecies by Christ of His return to earth may 
be read in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. They are 
distinct, and definite, and solemn, and — untrue. 

I could fill many pages with unfulfilled prophecies from 


209 


210 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the Old and New Testaments. I think the one I give 
is enough. 

Jesus Christ distinctly says that He will come in glory 
with all His Angels before “ this generation” shall have 
passed away. 

This is the year 1903. pt uttered His prophecy 
about the year 31. 


THE UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF 


CHRISTIANS declare the religious sentiment to be uni- 
versal. Even if it were so, that would show a universal 
spiritual hunger; but would not prove the Christian re- 
ligion to be its only food. 

But the religious sentiment is not universal. I know 
many young people who have never been taught religion 
of any kind, who have never read Bible nor Gospel, who 
never attended any place of worship; and they are virtu- 
ous and courteous and compassionate and happy, and 
feel no more need of spiritual comfort or religious conso- 
lation than I do. 

They are as gentle, sweet, and merry, and do their 
duty as faithfully as any Christian, yet to them Heaven 
and Hell are meaningless abstractions, God and the soul 
are problems they, with quiet cheerfulness, leave time to 
solve. 

If the craving for religion were universal these young 
folks would not be free from spiritual hunger. As they 
are free from spiritual hunger, I conclude that the cray- 
ing for religion is not born in us but must be inculcated. 

Many good men and women will look blank at such 
heresy. “ What!” they will exclaim, “take away the 
belief in the Bible, and the service of God? Why, our 
lives would be empty. What would you give us in ex- 
change?” 

To which I answer, “ The belief in yourselves, and 

2II 


212 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


the belief in your fellow-creatures, and the service of 
Man.” 

Such belief and such service will certainly increase the 
sum of happiness on earth. And as for the Hereafter 
—no man knoweth. No man knoweth. 


IS CHRIS PEANTTY THE ONLY HOPE? 


CHRISTIANS tell us that their religion is our only refuge, 
that Christ is our only saviour. From the wild Salva- 
tion Army captain, thundering and beseeching under his 
banner of blood and fire, to the Academic Bishop recon- 
ciling science and transfiguring crude translations in the 
dim religious light of a cathedral, all the Apostles of the 
Nazarene carpenter insist that He is the only way. In 
this the Christian resembles the Hindu, the Parsee, the 
Buddhist, and the Mohammedan. There is but one true 
religion, and it is his. 

The Rationalist looks on with a rueful smile, and won- 
ders. He sees nothing in any one of these religions to 
justify its claim to infallibility or pre-eminence. It seems 
to him unreasonable to assert that any theology or any 
saviour is indispensable. He realizes that a man may 
be good and happy in any church, or outside any church. 
He cannot admit that only those who follow Jesus, or 
Buddha, or Mahomet, or Moses can be “ saved,’ nor 
that all those who fail to believe in the divine mission of 
one or all of these will be lost. : 

Let us consider the Christian claim. If the Christian 
claim be valid, men cannot be good, nor happy, cannot 
be saved, except through Christ. Is this position sup- 
ported by the facts? 

One Christian tells me that “ It is in the solemn reali- 
ties of life that one gets his final evidence that Chris- 
tianity is true.” Another tells me that “In Christ alone 

213 


214 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


is peace’; another, that “ Without Christ there is neither 
health nor holiness.” 

If these statements mean anything, they mean that 
none but true Christians can live well, nor die well, nor 
bear sorrow and pain with fortitude, do their whole duty 
manfully, nor find happiness here and bliss hereafter. 

But I submit that Christianity does not make men lead 
better lives than others lead who are not Christians, and 
there are none so abjectly afraid of death as Christians 
are. The Pagan, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, and 
the Agnostic do not fear death nearly so much as do the 
Christians. 

The words of many of the greatest Christians are 
gloomy with the fears of death, of Hell, and of the wrath 
of God. 

The Roman soldier, the Spartan soldier, the Moham- 
medan soldier did not fear death. The Greek, the Bud- 
dhist, the Moslem, the Viking went to death as to a re- 
ward, or as to the arms of a bride. Compare the 
writings of Marcus Aurelius and of Jeremy Taylor, of 
Epictetus and John Bunyan, and then ask yourself 
whether the Christian religion makes it easier for men 
to die. 

There are millions of Europeans — not to speak of 
Buddhists and Jews—there are millions of men and 
women to-day who are not Christians. Do they live 
worse or die worse, or bear trouble worse, than those 
who accept the Christian faith? 

Some of us have come through “the solemn realities 
of life,” and have not realized that Christianity is true. 
We do not believe the Bible; we do not believe in the 
divinity of Christ; we do not pray, nor feel the need of 
prayer; we do not fear God, nor Hell, nor death. We 
are as happy as our even Christian: we are as good as 


IS COURTS IIANTTY THE ONLY: HOPE? .2rs 


our even Christian; we are as benevolent as our even 
Christian: what has Christianity to offer us? 

There are in the world some four hundred and fifty 
millions of Buddhists. How do they bear themselves in 
“the solemn realities of life’? 

I suggest that consolation, and fortitude, and cheerful- 
ness, and loving-kindness are not in the exclusive gift of 
the Christian religion, but may be found by good men in 
all religions. 

As to the effects of Christianity on life. Did Buddha, 
and King Asoka, and Socrates, and Aristides lead happy, 
and pure, and useful lives? Were there no virtuous, nor 
happy, nor noble men and women during all the millions 
of years before the Crucifixion? Was there neither love, 
nor honor, nor wisdom, nor valor, nor peace in the world 
until Paul turned Christian? History tells us no such 
gloomy story. ) 

Are there no good, nor happy, nor worthy men and 
women to-day outside the pale of the Christian churches? 
Amongst the eight hundred millions of human beings 
who do not know or do not follow Christ, are there none 
as happy and as worthy as any who follow Him? 

Are we Rationalists so wicked, so miserable, so useless 
in the world, so terrified of the shadow of death? I beg 
to say we are nothing of the kind. We are quite easy 
and contented. There is no despair in our hearts. We 
are not afraid of bogies, nor do we dread the silence and 
the dark. 

Friend Christian, you are deceived in this matter. 
When you say that Christ is the only true teacher, that 
He is the only hope of mankind, that He is the only 
Saviour, I must answer sharply, that I do not believe 
that, and I do not think you believe it deep down in your 
heart. For if Christ is the only Saviour, then thousands 


216 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


of millions of Buddhists have died unsaved, and you 
know you do not believe that. 

Jeremy Taylor believed that; but you know better. 

Do you not know, as a matter of fact, that it is as well 
in this world, and shall be as well hereafter, with a good 
Buddhist, or Jew, or Agnostic, as with a good Chris- 
tian? . 

Do you deny that? If you deny it, tell me what pun- 
ishment you think will be inflicted, here or hereafter, on 
a good man who does not accept Christianity. 

If you do not deny it, then on what grounds do you 
claim that Christ is the Saviour of all mankind, and that 
“only in Christ we are made whole”? 

You speak of the spiritual value of your religion. 
What can it give you more than Socrates or Buddha pos- 
sessed? ‘hese men had wisdom, courage, morality, 
fortitude, love, mercy. Can you find in all the world to- 
day two men as wise, as good, as gentle, as happy? Yet 
these men died centuries before Christ was born. 

If you believe that none but Christians can be happy or 
good; or if you believe that none but Christians can 
escape extinction or punishment, then there is some logic 
in your belief that Christ is our only Saviour. But that 
is to believe that there never was a good man before 
Christ died, and that Socrates and Buddha, and many 
thousands of millions of men, and women, and children, 
before Christ and after, have been lost, 

Such a belief is monstrous and absurd. 

But I see no escape from the dilemma it places us in. 
Jf only Christ can save, about twelve hundred millions 

/of our fellow-creatures will be lost. 
/ If men can be saved without Christ, then Christ is not 
_ our only Saviour. 


Christianity seems to be a composite religion, made up 


1S CHRISTIANITY THE ONLY HOPE? 217 


of fragments of religions of far greater antiquity. It is 
alleged to have originated some two thousand years ago. 
It has never been the religion of more than one-third of 
the human race, and of those professing it only ten per 
cent. at any time have thoroughly understood, or sin- 
cerely followed, its teachings. It was not indispensable 
to the human race during the thousands (I say millions) 
of years before its advent. It is not now indispensable 
to some eight hundred millions of human beings. It had 
no place in the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, 
and Greece. It was unknown to Socrates, to Epicurus, 
to Aristides, to Marcus Aurelius, to King Asoka, and to 
Buddha. It has opposed science and liberty almost from 
the first. It has committed the most awful crimes and 
atrocities. It has upheld the grossest errors and the 
most fiendish theories as the special revelations of God. 
It has been defeated in argument and confounded by 
facts over and over again, and has been steadily driven 
back and back, abandoning one essential position after 
another, until there is hardly anything left of its original 
pretensions. It is losing more and more every day its 
hold upon the obedience and confidence of the masses, 
and has only retained the suffrages of a minority of edu- 
cated minds by accepting as truths the very theories 
which in the past it punished as deadly sins. Are these 
the signs of a triumphant and indispensable religion? 
One would think, to read the Christian apologists, that 
before the advent of Christianity the world had neither 
virtue nor wisdom. But the world is very old. Civiliza- 
tion is very old. The Christian religion is but a new 
thing, is a mere episode in the history of human develop- 
ment, and has passed the zenith of its power. 


SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT 


CHRISTIANS say that only those who are naturally re- 
ligious can understand religion, or, as Archdeacon Wil- 
son puts it, “Spiritual truths must be spiritually dis- 
cerned.” This seems to amount to a claim that religious 
people possess an extra sense or faculty. 

When a man talks about “ spiritual discernment,” he 
makes a tacit assertion which ought not to be allowed to 
pass unchallenged. What is that assertion or implica- 
tion? It is the implication that there is a spiritual dis- 
cernment which is distinct from mental discernment. 
What does that mean? It means that man has other 
means of understanding besides his reason. 
| This spiritual discernment is a metaphysical myth. 

Man feels, sees, and reasons with his brain. His brain 
may be more emotional or less emotional, more acute or 
less acute ; but to invent a faculty of reason distinct from 
reason, or to suggest that man can feel or think otherwise 
than with his brain, is to darken counsel with a multitude 
of words. 

There is no ground for the assertion that a spiritual 
faculty exists apart from the reason. But the Christian 
first invents this faculty, and then tells us that by this 
faculty religion is to be judged. 

Spiritual truths are to be spiritually discerned. What 
is a “spiritual truth’? It is neither more nor less than 
a mental idea. It is an idea originating in the brain, and 
it can only be “ discerned,” or judged, or understood, by 
an act of reason performed by the brain. 

218 


SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT 219 


The word “ spiritual,” as used in this connection, is a 
mere affectation. It implies that the idea (which Arch- 
deacon Wilson calmly dubs a “truth’’) is so exalted, or 
so refined, that the reason is too gross to appreciate it. 

John says: “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” 
Thomas asks: ‘“ How do you know?” John says: 
“ Because I feel it.” Thomas answers: “ But that is 
only a rhapsodical expression of a woman’s reason: ‘I 
know because I know.’ You say your religion is true 
because you feel it is true. I might as well say it is not 
true because I feel that it is not true.” 

Then John becomes mystical. He says: “ Spiritual 
truths must be spiritually discerned.” Thomas, who be- 
lieves that all truths, and all errors, must be tried by the 
reason, shrugs his shoulders irreverently, and departs. 

Now, this mystical jargon has always been a favorite 
weapon of theologians, and it is a very effective weapon 
against weak-minded, or ignorant, or superstitious, or 
very emotional men. 

We must deal with this Beep tien sternly. We must 
deny that the human reason, which we know to be a fact, 
is inferior to a postulated “ spiritual” faculty which has 
no existence. We must insist that to make the brain 
the slave of a brain-created idea is as foolish as to sub- 
ordinate the substance to the shadow. 

John declares that “ God is love.”” Thomas asks him 
how he knows. John replies that it is a “ spiritual truth,” 
which must be “ spiritually discerned.” Thomas says: 
“It is not spiritual, and it is not true. It is a mere fig- 
ment of the brain.” John replies: ‘ You are incapable 
of judging: you are spiritually blind.” Thomas says: 
““My friend, you are incapable of reasoning: you are 
mentally halt and lame.” John says Thomas is a “ fel- 
low of no delicacy.” 


220 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


I think there is much to be said in excuse for Thomas. 
I think it is rather cool of John to invent a faculty of 
“ spiritual discernment,” and then to tell Thomas that he 
(Thomas) does not possess that faculty. 

That is how Archdeacon Wilson uses me. In a ser- 
mon at Rochdale he is reported to have spoken as fol- 
lows: 

As regards the first axiom, the archdeacon reaffirmed his 
declaration as to Mr. Blatchford’s disqualification for such a 
controversy. . . . Whether Mr. Blatchford recognized the 
fact or not, it was true that there was a faculty among men 
which, in its developed state, was as distinct, as unequally dis- 
tributed, as mysterious in its origin and in its distribution, as 
was the faculty for pure mathematics, for music, for meta- 
physics, or for research. They might call it the devotional or 
religious faculty. Just as there were men whose faculties of 
insight amounted to genius in other regions of mental activity, 
so there were spiritual geniuses, geniuses in the region in which 
man holds communion with God, and from this region these 
who had never developed the faculty were debarred. One who 
was not devotional, not humble, not gentle in his treatment of 
the beliefs of others, one who could lightly ridicule the ele- 
mentary forms of belief which had corresponded to the lower 
stages of culture, past and present, was not likely to do good 
in a religious controversy. 

Here is the tyranny of language, indeed! Here is a 
farrago of myths and symbols. “ There is a faculty — 
we may call it the devotional or religious faculty — there 
are geniuses in the region in which man holds communion 
with God”! 

Why, the good archdeacon talks of the “region in 
which man holds communion with God” as if he were 
talking of the telephone exchange. He talks of God as 
if he were talking of the Postmaster-General. He postu- 
lates a God, and he postulates a region, and he postulates 
a communication, and then talks about all these postu- 
lates as if they were facts. I protest against this mys- 


tical, transcendental rhetoric. It is not argument. 


SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT 221 


Who has seen God? Who has entered that “ re- 
gion’? Who has communicated with God? 

There is in most men a desire, in some men a passion, 
for what is good. In some men this desire is weak, in 
others it is strong. In some it takes the form of devo- 
tion to “God,” in others it takes the form of devotion 
to men. In some it is colored by imagination, or dis- 
torted by a love of the marvelous; in others it is lighted 
by reason, and directed by love of truth. But whether 
a man devotes himself to God and to prayer, or devotes 
himself to man and to politics or science, he is actuated 
by the same impulse — by the desire for what is good. 

John says: “I feel that there is a God, and I worship 
Him.” Thomas says: “I do not know whether or not 
there is a God, and if there is, He does not need my 
adoration. But I know there are men in darkness, and 
women in trouble, and children in pain, and I know they 
do need my love and my help. I therefore will not pray ; 
but I will work.” 

To him says John: “ You are a fellow of no delicacy. 
You lack spiritual discernment. You are disqualified 
for the expression of any opinion on spiritual truths.” 
This is what John calls “ humility,” and “gentle treat- 
ment of the beliefs of others.” But Thomas calls it un- 
conscious humor. 

Really, Archdeacon Wilson’s claim that only those 
possessing spiritual discernment can discern spiritual 
truths means no more than that those who cannot believe 
in religion do not believe in religion, or that a man 
whose reason tells him religion is not true is incapable 
of believing religion is true. But what he means it to 
mean is that a man whose reason rejects religion is unfit 
to criticise religion, and that only those who accept re- 


222 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


ligion as true are qualified to express an opinion as to its 
truth. He might as well claim that the only person 
qualified to criticise the Tory Party is the person who has 
the faculty for discerning Tory truth. 

My claim is that ideas relating to spiritual things must 
be weighed by the same faculties as ideas relating to ma- 
terial things. That is to say, man can only judge in 
religious matters as he judges in all other matters, by his 
reason. 

I do not say that all men have the same kind or quan- 
tity of reason. What I say is, that a man with a good 
intellect is a better judge on religious matters than a man 
with an inferior intellect; and that by reason, and by 
reason alone, can truth of any kind be discerned. » 

The archdeacon speaks of spiritual geniuses, “ geniuses 
in the region in which man holds communion with 
God.” The Saints, for example. Well, if the Saints 
were geniuses in matters religious, the Saints ought to 
have been better judges of spiritual truth than other 
men. But was it so? The Saints believed in angels, 
and devils, and witches, and hell-fire, and Jonah, and the 
Flood ; in demoniacal possession, in the working of mira- 
cles by the bones of dead martyrs; the Saints accepted 
David and Abraham and Moses as men after God’s own 
heart. | 

Many of the most spiritually gifted Christians do not 
believe in these things any longer. The Saints, then, 
were mistaken. They were mistaken about these spir- 
itual matters in which they are alleged to have been 
specially gifted. 

We do not believe in sorcerers, in witches, in miracle- 
working relics, in devils, and eternal fire and brimstone. 
Why? Because science has killed those errors. What 
is science? It is reason applied to knowledge. The 


SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT 223 


faculty of reason, then, has excelled this boasted faculty 
of spiritual discernment in its own religious sphere. 

It would be easy to multiply examples. 

Jeremy Taylor was one of the most brilliant and spir- 
itual of our divines. But his spiritual perception, as 
evidenced in his works, was fearfully at fault. He be- 
lieved in hell-fire, and in hell-fire for all outside the pale 
of the Christian Church. And he was afraid of God, 
and afraid of death. 

Archdeacon Wilson denies to us this faculty of spir- 
itual perception. Very well. But I have enough mental 
acuteness to see that the religion of Jeremy Taylor was 
cowardly, and gloomy, and untrue. 

Luther and Wesley were spiritual geniuses. They 
both believed in witchcraft. Luther believed in burning 
heretics. Wesley said if we gave up belief in witch- 
craft we must give up belief in the Bible. Luther and 
Wesley were mistaken: their spiritual discernment had 
led them wrong. Their superstition and cruelty were 
condemned by humanity and common sense. 

To me it appears that these men of “ spiritual discern- 
ment” are really men of abnormally credulous and emo- 
tional natures: men too weak to face the facts. 

We cannot allow the Christians to hold this position 
unchallenged. I regard the religious plane as a lower 
one than our own. I think the Christian idea of God is 
even now, after two thousand years of evolution, a very 
mean and weak one. 

I cannot love nor revere a “ Heavenly Father” whose 
children have to pray to Him for what they need, or for 
pardon for their sins. My children do not need to pray 
to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly 
father. Yet Christ, who came direct from God — who 
was God —to teach all men God’s will, directed us to 


224 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


pray to God for our daily bread, for forgiveness of our 
trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us 
into temptation! Imagine a father leading his children 
into temptation! 

What is there so superior or so meritorious in the at- 
titude of a religious man towards God? This good man 
prays: for what? He prays that something be given to 
him, or forgiven to him. He prays for gain or fear. Is 
that so lofty and so noble? 

But you will say: “It is not all for gain or for fear. 
He prays for love: because he loves God.” But js not 
this like sending flowers and jewels to the king? The 
king is so rich already: but there are many poor outside 
his gates. God is not in need of our love: some of 
God’s children are in need. Truly, these high ideals are 
very curious. 

Mr. Augustine Birrell, in his Miscellanies, quotes a 
passage from “Lux Mundi”: and although I cannot 
find it in that book, it is too good to lose: 


If this be the relation of faith to reason, we see the explana- 
tion of what seems at first sight to the philosopher to be the 
most irritating and hypocritical characteristic of faith. It is 
always shifting its intellectual defenses. It adopts this or that 
fashion of philosophical apology, and then, when this is shat- 
tered by some novel scientific generalization of faith, probably 
after a passionate struggle to retain the old position, suddenly 
and gayly abandons it, and takes up the new formula, just as 
if nothing had happened. It discovers that the new formula is 
admirably adapted for its purposes, and is, in fact, what it al- 
ways meant, only it has unfortunately omitted to mention it. 
So it goes on, again and again; and no wonder that the philos- 
ophers growl at those humbugs, the clergy. 


That passage has a rather sinister bearing upon the 
Christian’s claim for spiritual genius. 

But, indeed, the claim is not admissible. The 
Churches have taught many errors. Those errors have 
been confuted by skepticism and science. It is no thanks 


SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT 225 


to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It 
is to reason we owe our advance; and what a great ad- 
vance it is. We have got rid of Hell, we have got rid 
of the Devil, we have got rid of the Christian champion- 
ship of slavery, of witch-murder, of martyrdom, perse- 
cution, and torture; we have destroyed the claims for the 
infallibility of the Scriptures, and have taken the fetters 
of the Church from the limbs of Science and Thought, 
and before long we shall have demolished the belief in 
miracles. The Christian religion has defended all these 
dogmas, and has done inhuman murder in defense of 
them; and has been wrong in every instance, and has 
been finally defeated in every instance. Steadily and 
continually the Church has been driven from its posi- 
tions. It is still retreating, and we are not to be per- 
suaded to abandon our attack by the cool assurance that 
we are mentally unfit to judge in spiritual matters. Spir- 
itual Discernment has been beaten by reason in the past, 
and will be beaten by reason in the future. It is facts 
and logic we want, not rhetoric. 


SOME OTHER APOLOGIES 


CHRISTIANITY, we are told, vastly improved the relations 
of rich and poor. 

How comes it, then, that the treatment of the poor by 
the rich is better amongst Jews than amongst Chris- 
tians? How did it fare with the poor all over Europe 
in the centuries when Christianity was at the zenith of 
its power? How is it we have twelve millions of Chris- 
tians on the verge of starvation in England to-day, with 
a Church rolling in wealth and an aristocracy decadent 
from luxury and self-indulgence? How is it that the 
gulf betwixt rich and poor in such Christian capitals as 
New York, London, and Paris is so wide and deep? 

Christianity, we are told, first gave to mankind the 
gospel of peace. Christianity did not bring peace, but a 
sword. The Crusades were holy wars. The wars in 
the Netherlands were holy wars. The Spanish Armada 
was a holy expedition. Some of these holy wars lasted 
for centuries and cost millions of human lives. Most of 
them were remarkable for the barbarities and cruelties 
of the Christian priests and soldiers. 

From the beginning of its power Christianity has been 
warlike, violent, and ruthless. To-day Europe is an 
armed camp, and it is not long since the Christian Kaiser 
ordered his troops to give no quarter to the Chinese. 

There has never been a Christian nation as peaceful as 
the Indians and Burmese under Buddhism. It was King 
Asoka, and not Jesus Christ or St. Paul, who first taught 

226 


ee ee ee 


SOME OTHER APOLOGIES 227 


and first established a reign of national and international 
peace. 

To-day the peace of the world is menaced, not by the 
Buddhists, the Parsees, the Hindoos or the Confucians, 
but by Christian hunger for territory, Christian lust of 
conquest, Christian avarice for the opening up of “ new 
markets,” Christian thirst for military glory, and jealousy 
and envy amongst the Christian powers one of another. 

Christianity, we are told, originated the Christlike type 
of character. The answer stares us in the face. How 
can we account for King Asoka, how can we account for 
Buddha? 

Christianity, we are told, originated hospitals. 

Hospitals were founded two centuries before Christ by 
King Asoka in India. 

Christianity, we are told, first broke down the barrier 
between Jew and Gentile! 

How have Christians treated Jews for fifteen centuries? 
How are Christians treating Jews to-day in Holy Rus- 
sia? How long is it since Jews were granted full rights 
of citizenship in Christian England? 

All this, the Christian will say, applies to the false and 
not to the true Christianity. 

Let us look, then, for an instant at the truest and best 
form of Christianity, and ask what it is doing? It is 
preaching about Sin, Sin, Sin. It is praying to God to 
do for Man what Man ought to do for himself, what 
Man can do for himself, what Man must do for himself; 
for God has never done it, and will never do it for 
him. 

And this fault in the Christian —the highest and 
truest Christian — attitude towards life does not lie in 
the Christians: it lies in the truest and best form of their 
religion. 


228 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


It is the belief in Free Will, in Sin, and in a Heavenly 
Father, and a Future recompense that leads the Christian 
wrong, and causes him to mistake the shadow for the 
substance. 


COUNSELS OF DESPAIR 


“Ir you take from us our religion,” say the Christians, 
“ what have you to offer but counsels of despair?” This 
seems to me rather a commercial way of putting the case, 
and not a very moral one. Because a moral man would 
not say: “If I give up my religion, what will you pay 
me?” He would say: “I will never give up my re- 
ligion unless I am convinced it is not true.’ To a moral 
man the truth would matter, but the cost would not. To 
ask what one may gain is to show an absence of all real 
religious feeling. 

The feeling of a truly religious man is the feeling that, 
cost what it may, he must do right. A religiously minded 
man could not profess a religion which he did not believe 
to be true. To him the vital question would be, not 
“ What will you give me to desert my colors?” but 
“What is the truth?” 

But, besides being immoral, the demand is unreason- 
able. If I say that a religion is untrue, the believer has 
a perfect right to ask me for proofs of my assertion; but 
he has no right to ask me for a new promise. Suppose 
I say this thing is not true, and to believe anything which 
is untrue is useless. Then, the believer may justly de- 
mand my reasons. But he has no right to ask me for a 
new dream in place of the old one. I am not a prophet, 
with promises of crowns and glories in my gift. 

But yet I will answer this queer question as fully as I 
can. 

I do not say there is no God. I do not say there is no 


229 


230 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


“ Heaven,” nor that the soul is not immortal. There is 
not enough evidence to justify me in making such asser- , 
tions. . 

I only say, on those subjects, that I do not know. 

I do not know about those things. There may be a 
God, there may be a “ Heaven,” there may be an immor- 
tal soul. And a man might accept all I say about re- 
ligion without giving up any hope his faith my bid him 
hold as to a future life. 

As to those “ counsels of despair”: the question puz- 
zles me. Despair of what? ! 

Let me put the matter as I see it. I think sometimes, 
in a dubious way, that perhaps there may be a life beyond 
the grave. And that is interesting. But I think my 
stronger, and deeper, and more permanent feeling is, that 
when we die we die finally, and for us there is no more 
life at all. That is, I suppose, my real belief — or suppo- 
sition. But do I despair? Why should I? The idea 
of immortality does not elate me very much. As I said 
just now, it is interesting. But I am not excited about 
it. If there is another innings, we will go in and play 
our best; and we hope we shall be very much better and 
kinder than we have been. -But if it is sleep: well, sleep 
is rest, and as I feel that I have had a really good time, 
on the whole, I should consider it greedy to cry because 
I could not have it all over again. That is how I feel 
about it. Despair? JI am one of the happiest old fogies 
_ in all London. I have found life agreeable and amus- 
ing, and I’m glad I came. But I am not so infatuated 
with life that I should care to go back and begin it all ° 
again. And though a new start, in a new world, would 
be — yes, interesting —I am not going to howl because 
old Daddy Death says it is bedtime. I think somebody, 
or something, has been very good to allow me to come in 


___ ————S- SS <= 


COUNSELS OF DESPAIR 231 


and see the fun, and stay so long, especially as I came 
in, so to speak, “on my face.” But to beg for another 
invitation would be cheeky. Some of you want such a 
lot for nothing. 

“But,” you may say, “the poor, the failures, the 
wretched — what of them?” And I answer: “ Ah! 
that is one of the weak points of your religion, not of 
mine.” Consider these unhappy ones, what do you offer 
them? ‘You offer them an everlasting bliss, not because 
they were starved or outraged here—vnot at all. For 
your religion admits the probability that those who came 
into this world worst equipped, who have here been most 
unfortunate, and to whom God and man have behaved 
most unjustly, will stand a far greater chance of a future 
of woe than of happiness. 

No. According to your religion, those of the poor or 
the weak who get to Heaven will get there, not because 
they have been wronged and must be righted, but be- 
cause they believe that Jesus Christ can save them. 

Now, contrast that awful muddle of unreason and in- 
justice with what you call my “counsels of despair.” I 
say there may be a future life and there may not be a 
future life. If there is a future life, a man will deserve 
it no less, and enjoy it no less, for having been happy 
here, If there is no future life, he who has been un- 
happy here will have lost both earthly happiness and 
heavenly hope. 

Therefore, I say, it is our duty to see that all our fel- 
low-creatures are as happy here as we can make them. 

Therefore I say to my fellow-creatures, “ Do not con- 
sent to suffer, and to be wronged in this world, for it is 
immoral and weak so to submit; but hold up your heads, 
and demand your rights, here and now, and leave the 
rest to God, or to Fate,” 


232 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


You see, I am not trying to rob any man of his hope 
of Heaven; I am only trying to inspire his hope on earth. 

But I have been asked whether I think it right and 
wise to “shake the faith of the poor working-man — 
the faith that has helped him so long.” 

What has this faith helped him to do? To bear the 
ills and the wrongs of this life more patiently, in the hope 
of a future reward? Is that the idea? But I do not 
want the working-man to endure patiently the ills and 
wrongs of this life. I want him, for his own sake, his 
wife’s sake, his children’s sake, and forthe sake of right 
and progress, to demand justice, and to help in the work 
of amending the conditions of life on earth. 

No, I do not want to rob the working-man of his faith: 
I want to awaken his faith —in himself. 

Religion promises us a future Heaven, where we shall 
meet once more those ‘whom we have loved long since 
and lost awhile”; and that is the most potent lure that 
could be offered to poor humanity. : 

How much of the so-called “ universal instinct of be- 
lief” arises from that pathetic human yearning for re- 
union with dear friends, sweet wives, or pretty children 
“lost awhile”? It is human love, and natural longing 
for the dead darlings, whose wish is father to the thought 
of Heaven. Before that passionate sentiment reason 
itself would almost stand abashed: were reason antag- 
onistic to the “larger hope ”— which none can prove. 

Few of us can keep our emotions from overflowing the 
bounds of reason in such a case. The poor, tearful de- 
sire lays a pale hand on reason’s lips and gazes wistfully 
into the mysterious abyss of the Great Silence. 

So I say of that “larger hope,” cherish it if you can, 
and if you feel it necessary to your peace of mind. But 
do not mistake a hope for a certainty. No priest, nor 


COUNSELS OF DESPAIR 233 


pope, nor prophet can tell you more about that mystery 
than you know. It is a riddle, and your guess or mine 
may be as near as that of a genius. We can only guess. 
We do not know. 

Is it wise, then, to sell even a fraction of your liberty 
of thought or deed for a paper promise which the Bank 
of Futurity may fail to honor? Is it wise, is it needful, 
to abandon a single right, to abate one just demand, to 
neglect one possibility of happiness here and now, in 
order to fulfill the conditions laid down for the attain- 
ment of that promised heaven by a crowd of contradic- 
tory theologians who know no more about God or about 
the future than we know ourselves? 

Death has dropped a curtain of mystery between us 
and those we love. No theologian knows, nor ever did 
know, what is hidden behind that veil. 

Let us, then, do our duty here, try to be happy here, 
try to make others happy here, and when the curtain lifts 
for us — we shall see. 


CONCLUSION 


x 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 


I HAVE been asked why I have “gone out of my way 
to attack religion,” why I do not “confine myself to my 
own sphere and work for Socialism, and what good I ex- 
pect to do by pulling down without building up.” 

In reply I beg to say: 

1. That I have not “gone out of my way” to attack 
religion. It was because I found religion in my way that 
I attacked it. 

2. That I am working for Socialism when I attack a 
religion which is hindering Socialism. 

3. That we must pull down before we can build up, 
and that I hope to do a little building, if only on the 
foundation. 

But these questions arose from a misconception of my 
position and purpose. 

I have been called an “Infidel,” a Socialist, and a 
Fatalist. Now. I am an Agnostic, or Rationalist, and I 
am a Determinist, and I am a Socialist. But if I were 
asked to describe myself in a single word, I should call 
myself a Humanist. 

Socialism, Determinism, and Rationalism are factors 
in the sum; and the sum is Humanism. 

Briefly, my religion is to do the best I can for hu- 
manity. I am a Socialist, a Determinist, and a Rational- 
ist because I believe that Socialism, Determinism, and 
Rationalism will be beneficial to mankind. 

I oppose the Christian religion because I do not think 
the Christian religion is beneficial to mankind, and be- 


237 


238 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


cause I think it is an obstacle in the way of Humanism. 

I am rather surprised that men to whom my past work 
is well known should suspect me of making a wanton and 
purposeless attack upon religion. My attack is not 
wanton, but deliberate; not purposeless, but very pur- 
poseful and serious. I am not acting irreligiously, but 
religiously. I do not oppose Christianity because it is 
good, but because it is not good enough. 

There are two radical differences between Humanism 
and Christianity. 

Christianity concerns itself with God and Man, put- 
ting God first and Man last. 

Humanism concerns itself solely with Man, so that 
Man is its first and last care. That is one radical dif- 
ference. . 

Then, Christianity accepts the doctrine of Free Will, 
with its consequent rewards and punishments; while 
Humanism embraces Determinist doctrines, with their 
consequent theories of brotherhood and prevention. 
And that is another radical difference. 

Because the Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, 
the wanton, and the drunkard as men and women who 
have done wrong. But the Humanist regards them as 
men and women who have been wronged. 

The Christian remedy is to punish crime and to preach 
repentance and salvation to “sinners.” The Humanist 
remedy is to remove the causes which lead or drive men 
into crime, and so to prevent the manufacture of “ sin- 
ners.” 

Let us consider the first difference. Christianity con- 
cerns itself with the relations of Man to God; as well 
as with the relations between man and man. It con- 
cerns itself with the future life as well as with the pres- 
ent life. 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 230 


Now, he who serves two causes cannot serve each or 
both of them as well as he could serve either of them 
alone. 

He who serves God and Man will not serve Man as 
effectually as he who gives himself wholly to the service 
of Man. 

As the religion of Humanism concerns itself solely 
with the good of humanity, I claim that it is more ben- 
eficial to humanity than is the Christian religion, which 
divides its service and love between Man and God. 

Moreover, this division is unequal. For Christians 
give a great deal more attention to God than to Man. 

And on that point I have to object, first, that although 
they believe there is a God, they do not know there is a 
God, nor what He is like. Whereas they do know very 
well that there are men, and what they are like. And 
secondly, that if there be a God, that God does not 
need their love nor their service; whereas their fel- 
low-creatures do need their love and their service very 
sorely. 

And, as I remarked before, if there is a Father in 
Heaven, He is likely to be better pleased by our loving 
and serving our fellow-creatures (His children) than 
by our singing and praying to Him, while our brothers 
and sisters (His children) are ignorant, or brutalized, 
or hungry, or in trouble. 

I speak as a father myself when I say that I should 
not like to think that one of my children would be so 
foolish and so unfeeling as to erect a marble tomb to 
my memory, while the others needed a friend or a meal. 
And I speak in the same spirit when I add that to build a 
cathedral, and to spend our tears and pity upon a Saviour 
who was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, while 
women and men and little children are being crucified 


240 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


in our midst, without pity and without help, is cant, and 
sentimentality, and a mockery of God. 

Please note the words I use. I have selected them 
deliberately and calmly, because I believe that they are 
true and that they are needed. 

Christians are very eloquent about Our Blessed Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Our Father which is in 
‘Heaven. I know nothing about Gods and heavens. But 
I know a good deal about Manchester and London, 
and about men and women; and if I did not feel the 
real shames and wrongs of the world more keenly, and 
if I did not try more earnestly and strenuously to rescue 
my fellow-creatures from ignorance, and sorrow, and 
injustice, than most Christians do, I should blush to 
look death in the face or call myself a man. 

I choose my words deliberately again when I say that 
to me the most besotted and degraded outcast tramp or — 
harlot matters more than all the Gods and angels that 
humanity ever conjured up out of its imagination. 

The Rev. R. F. Horton, in his answer to my question 
as to the need of Christ as a Saviour, uttered the follow- 
ing remarkable words: 


But there is a holiness so transcendent that the angels veil 
their faces in the presence of God. I have known a good many 
men who have rejected Christ, and men who are living without 
Him, and, though God forbid that I should judge them, I do 
not know one of them whom I would venture to take as my 
example if I wished to appear in the presence of the holy God. 
They do not tremble for themselves, but I tremble for myself 
if my holiness is not to exceed that of such Scribes and Phari- 
sees. Oh, my brothers, where Christ is talking of holiness He 
is talking of such a goodness, such a purity, such a transcendent 
and miraculous likeness of God in human form, that I believe 
it is true to say that there is but one name, as there is but one 
way, by which a man can be holy and come into the presence 
of God; and I look, therefore, upon this word of Christ not 
only as the way of salvation, but as the revelation of the holi- 
ness which God demands. 

I close these answers to the questions with a practical word 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 241 


te every one that is here. It is my belief, that you may be good 
enough to pass through the grave and to wander in the dark 
spaces of the world which is still earthly and sensual, and you 
may be good enough to escape, as it were, the torments-of the 
hell which result from a life of debauchery and cruelty and 
selfishness; but if you are to stand in the presence of God, if 
you are ever so pure, complete, and glad, “all rapture through 
and through in God’s most holy sight,” you must believe in the 
name and in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only be- 
gotten Son of God, who came into the world to save sinners, 
and than whose no other name is given in heaven or earth 
whereby we may be saved. 

Such talk as that makes me feel ill. Here is a cul- 
tured, educated, earnest man rhapsodizing about holiness 
and the glory of a God no mortal eye has ever seen, 
and of whom no word has ever reached us across the 
gulf of death. And while he rhapsodized, with a con- 
gregation of honest bread-and-butter citizens under him, 
trying hard with their blinkered eyes and blunted souls 
to glimpse that imaginary glamour of ecstatic “ holi- 
ness,’ there surged and rolled around them the stunted, 
poisoned, and emaciated life of London. 

Holiness! — Holiness in the Strand, in Piccadilly, in 
Houndsditch, in Whitechapel, in Park Lane, in Somers- 
town, and the Mint. 

Holiness! — In Westminster, and in Fleet Street, and 
on Change. 

Holiness!—In a world given over to robbery, to 
conquest, to vanity, to ignorance, to humbug, to the 
worship of the golden calf. 

Holiness! — With twelve millions of our workers on 
the verge of famine, with rich fools and richer rogues 
lording it over nations of untaught and half-fed dupes 
and drudges. 

Holiness !— With a recognized establishment of man- 
ufactured paupers, cripples, criminals, idlers, dunces, 
and harlots. 


242 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


Holiness! —In a garden of weeds, a hotbed of lies, 
where hypnotized saints sing psalms and worship ghosts, 
while dogs and horses are pampered and groomed, and 
children are left to rot, to hunger, and to sink into 
crime, or shame, or the grave. 

Holiness! For shame. The word is obnoxious. It 
has stood so long for craven fear, for exotistical ine- 
briation, for selfish retirement from the trials and buf- 
fets and dirty work of the world. 

What have we to do with such dreamy, self-centered, 
emotional holiness, here and now, in London? 

What we want is citizenship, human sympathy, public 
spirit, daring agitators, stern reformers, drains, houses, 
schoolmasters, clean water, truth-speaking, soap — and 
Socialism. 

Holiness!’ The people are being robbed. The people 
are being cheated. The people are being lied to. The 
people are being despised and Hess and ruined body 
and soul. 

Yes. And you will find some of the greatest rascals 
and most impudent liars in the “ Synagogues and High 
Places” of the cities. 

Holiness! Give us common sense, and common hon- 
esty, and a “steady supply of men and women wae can 
be trusted with small sums.” 

Your Christians talk of saving sinners. But our duty 
is not to save sinners; but to prevent their regular man- 
ufacture: their dy stemeti¢ manufacture in the interests 
of holy and respectable and successful and superior 
persons. ‘ 

Holiness! Cant, rant, and fustian! The nations are 
rotten with dirty pride, and dirty greed, and mean 
lying, and. petty ambitions, and sickly sentimentality. 
Holiness! I should be ashamed to show my face at 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 243 


Heaven’s gates and say I came from such a contemptible 
planet. 

Holiness! Your religion does not make it.— Its ethics 
are too weak, its theories too unsound, its transcen- 
dentalism is too thin. 

Take as an example this much admired passage from 
Sh James's 


Pure religion and undefiled is this before God and the Father, 
to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
oneself unspotted from the world. 

The widows and the fatherless are our brothers and 
sisters and our flesh and blood, and should be at home 
in our hearts and on our hearths. And who that is a 
man will work to keep himself unspotted from the 
world if the service of the world needs him to expose 
his flesh and his soul to risk? 

I can fancy a Reverend Gentieman going to Heaven, 
unspotted from the world, to face the awful eyes of a 
Heavenly Father whose gaze has been on London. 

A good man mixes with the world in the rough-and- 
tumble ; and takes his share of the dangers, and the falls, 
and the temptations. His duty is to work and to help, 
and not to shirk and keep his hands white. His busi- 
ness is not to be holy, but to be useful. 

In such a world as this, friend Christian, a man has 
no business reading the Bible, singing hymns, and at- 
tending divine worship. He has not time. All the 
strength and pluck and wit he possesses are needed in 
the work of real religion, a real salvation. The rest is 
all “dreams out of the ivory gate, and visions before 
midnight.” 

There ought to be no such thing as poverty in the 
world. The earth is bounteous: the ingenuity of man 
is great. He who defends the claims of the individual, 


244 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


or of a class, against the rights of the human race is a 
criminal. 

A hungry man, an idle man, an ignorant man, a desti- 
tute or degraded woman, a beggar or pauper child is a 
reproach to Society and a witness against existing re- 
ligion and civilization. 

War is a crime and a horror. No man is doing his 
duty when he is not trying his best to abolish war. 

I have been asked why I “ interfered in things beyond 
my sphere,’ and why I made “an unprovoked attack ” 
upon religion. I am trying to explain. My position 
is as follows: 

Rightly or wrongly, I am a Democrat. Rightly or 
wrongly, I am for the rights of the masses as against 
the privileges of the classes. Rightly or wrongly, I am 
opposed to Godship, Kingship, Lordship, Priestship. 
Rightly or wrongly, I am opposed to Imperialism, and 
Militarism, and conquest. Rightly or wrongly, I am 
for universal brotherhood and universal freedom. 
Rightly or wrongly, I am for union against disunion, 
for collective ownership against private ownership. 
Rightly or wrongly, I am for reason against dogma, for 
evolution against revelation; for humanity always; for 
earth, not Heaven; for the holiest Trinity of all—the 
Trinity of man, woman, and child. 

The greatest curse of humanity is ignorance. The 
only remedy is knowledge. 

Religion, being based on fixed authority, is naturally 
opposed to knowledge. 

A man may have a university education, and be igno- 
rant. A man may be a genius, like Plato, or Shake- 
speare, or Darwin, and lack more knowledge. The 
humblest of unlettered peasants can teach the highest 
genius something useful. The greatest scientific and 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 245 


philosophical achievements of the most brilliant age are 
imperfect, and can be added to and improved by future 
generations. 

There is no such thing as human infallibility. There 
is no finality in human knowledge and human progress. 
Fixed authority in matters of knowledge or belief is 
an insult to humanity. 

Christianity degrades and restrains humanity with the 
shackles of “original sin.’ Man is not born in sin. 
There is no such thing as sin. Man is innately more 
prone to good than to evil; and the path of his destiny 
is upward. 

I should be inclined to call him who denies the innate 
goodness of mankind an “ Infidel.” 

Heredity breeds different kinds of men. But all are 
men whom it breeds. And all men are capable of good, 
and of yet more good. Environment can move moun- 
tains. There is a limit to its power for good and for 
evil, but that power is almost unimaginably great. 

The object of life is to improve ourselves and our 
fellow-creatures, and to leave the world better and hap- 
pier than we found it. 

The great cause of crime and failure is ignorance. 
The great cause of unhappiness is selfishness. No man 
can be happy who loves or values himself too much. 

_ As all men are what heredity and environment have 
made them, no man deserves punishment nor reward. 
As the sun shines alike upon the evil and the good, so in 
the eyes of justice the saint and the sinner are as one. 
No man has a just excuse for pride, or anger, or scorn. 

Spiritual pride, intellectual pride, pride of pedigree, 
of caste, of race are all contemptible and mean. 

The superior person who wraps himself in a cloak of 


246 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


solemn affectations should be laughed at until he learns 
to be honest. 

The masterful man who puts on airs of command and 
leadership insults his fellow-creatures, and should be 
gently but firmly lifted down many pegs. 

Genius should not be regarded as a weapon, but as a 
tool. A man of genius should not be allowed to com- 
_ mand, but only to serve. The human race would do 
well to watch jealously and restrain firmly all superior 
persons. Most kings, jockeys, generals, prize-fighters, 
priests, ladies’-maids, millionaires, lords, tenor singers, 
authors, lion-comiques, artists, beauties, statesmen, and 
actors are spoiled children who sadly need to be taught 
their place. They should be treated kindly, but not 
allowed too many toys and sweetmeats, nor too much 
flattery. Such superior persons are like the clever 
minstrels, jesters, clerks, upholsterers, storytellers, horse- 
breakers, huntsmen, stewards, and officers about a court. 
They should be fed and praised when they deserve it, 
but they cannot be too often reminded that they are re- 
tainers and servants, and that their Sovereign and 
Master is — 


THE PEOPLE. 


In a really humane and civilized nation: 

There should be and need be no such thing as 
poverty. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 
ignorance, 

There should be and need be no such thing as 
crime. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 
idleness. 


THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 247 


There should be and need be no such thing as 

war. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 

slavery. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 

hate. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 

envy. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 

pride. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 

greed. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 

gluttony. 

There should be and need be no such thing as 

vice. | 

But this is not a humane and civilized nation, and 
never will be while it accepts Christianity as its religion. 

These are my reasons for opposing Christianity. If 
I have said anything to give pain to any Christian, 1 am 
sorry and ask to be forgiven. I have tried to maintain 
“towards all creatures a bounteous friendly feeling.” 

As to what I said about holiness, I cannot take back 
a word. Dr. Horton said that without that form of 
holiness which only a belief in Christ can give we shall 
only be good enough to barely escape Hell, and, “ after 
passing through the grave, to wander in the dark spaces 
of the world, which is still earthly and sensual.” 

I say earnestly and deliberately, that if I can only 
attain to Heaven and to holiness as one of a few, if I 
am to go to Heaven and leave millions of my brothers 
and sisters to ignorance and misery and crime, I will 
hope to be sent instead into those “dark spaces of the 
world which is still earthly and sensual” and there to 


248 GOD AND MY NEIGHBOR 


be permitted to fight with all my strength against pain 
and error and injustice and human sorrow. I know I 
shall be happier so. I think I was made for that kind 
of work, and I fervently wish that I may be allowed 
to do my duty as long as ever there is a wrong in the 
world that I can help to right, a grief I can help to 
soothe, a truth I can help to tell. 

Let the Holy have their Heaven. I am a man, and 
an Infidel. And this is my Apology. 

Besides, gentlemen, Christianity is not true. 


THE END 


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